Passive seismic tomography application for cave monitoring in DOZ underground mine

PT. Freeport Indonesia

Bagus Endar B. Nurhandoko, Woen Wely, Herlan Setiadi, and Erwin Riyanto

Citation: 1656, 070003 (2015); doi: 10.1063/1.4917149

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4917149
View Table of Contents: http://aip.scitation.org/toc/apc/1656/1
Published by the American Institute of Physics
 Passive Seismic Tomography Application for Cave
Monitoring in DOZ Underground Mine PT. Freeport
Indonesia
Bagus Endar B.Nurhandoko1 , Woen Wely 1 , Herlan Setiadi1 , Erwin Riyanto2
1)
WISFIR Laboratory, Earth Physics and Complex System Division, Physics Department, Faculty of Mathematics
and Natural Sciences, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia
2) Geotechnical and Hydrology PT. Freeport Indonesia
wonbin_ww@hotmail.com

Abstract. It is already known that tomography has a great impact for analyzing and mapping unknown objects based on
inversion, travel time as well as waveform inversion. Therefore, tomography has used in wide area, not only in medical
but also in petroleum as well as mining. Recently, tomography method is being applied in several mining industries. A
case study of tomography imaging has been carried out in DOZ ( Deep Ore Zone ) block caving mine, Tembagapura,
Papua. Many researchers are undergoing to investigate the properties of DOZ cave not only outside but also inside which
is unknown. Tomography takes a part for determining this objective.The sources are natural from the seismic events that
caused by mining induced seismicity and rocks deformation activity, therefore it is called as passive seismic. These
microseismic travel time data are processed by Simultaneous Iterative Reconstruction Technique (SIRT). The result of
the inversion can be used for DOZ cave monitoring. These information must be used for identifying weak zone inside
the cave. In addition, these results of tomography can be used to determine DOZ and cave information to support mine
activity in PT. Freeport Indonesia.

Keyword: velocity, tomography, passive seismic, SIRT, DOZ

PACS: 91.30.JK

INTRODUCTION FIELD DESCRIPTION

Motivated by the sucessful implementation of
medical tomography in the early 1980s,
geophysicists and engineers had attempted analogous
methods using seismic energy for explorations.
Tomography method becomes very applicable since
it can produce accurate estimation of velocity.
Passive seismic tomographic is an inversion method
that used P-S wave travel times from natural micro-
earthquakes activity to accurately estimate 2D or 3D
model of the earth interior. Passive tomography
utilizes seismic events as sources in a simultaneous
inversion for event locations and velocity structure.
Routine microseismic monitoring in mining was
introduced over 30 years ago with two main
objectives: immediate location of larger seismic
events to guide rescue operations and prediction of
large rockmass instabilities.
Deep Ore Zone (DOZ) is a large copper-gold
skarn deposit found in the East Ertsberg Skarn
System (ESS) and hosted in the lower Waripi
formation. The Ertsberg District is located in
Sudirman Range, of the Mt. Jayawijaya, in the Papua
Province (Figure 1). The DOZ block cave that
operated by PT. Freeport Indonesia is the third block
cave after Gunung Bijih Timur (GBT) Mine and
Intermediate Ore Zone (IOZ) Mine (Figure 2).
The cluster of copper-gold ore bodies of the DOZ
yields from a structural and magmatic focus are
provided by collisional tectonic forces between the
Pacific and Australian plates. DOZ has been partially
developed by using block cave mine method. It
allows the ore collapse due to its own weight in a
control. An illustration figure of DOZ cave can be
seen in Figure 3. Actually, imaging the cave in DOZ
is quite difficult, due to the natural sources with
unknown origin times and locations. Therefore, we

The 5th Asian Physics Symposium (APS 2012)

AIP Conf. Proc. 1656, 070003-1–070003-4; doi: 10.1063/1.4917149
© 2015 AIP Publishing LLC 978-0-7354-1298-9/$30.00

070003-1
can not guarantee that all the sources are transmitted
and recorded to all geophones. We have to process
the seismic events recorded to get the origin time and
location informations.
FIGURE 1. Location of PT. Freeport Indonesia.
FIGURE 2. Underground mines complex in the East
Ertsberg Skarn System (EESS) in PT. Freeport Indonesia
(Widijanto, 2008 ).
FIGURE 3. Illustration figure of DOZ Cave 2008 (Setiadi,
2012).
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METHODOLOGY
In this survey, we use seismic events in DOZ
occured and process it using ISS International
Microseismic Monitoring System to get the locations
and origin times. From the origin times, Ptime and S
time can be easly determined. We use 11 geophones
in DOZ with different coordinate. The data are
computed and imagined using Simultaneous Iterative
Reconstruction Technique (SIRT). SIRT is a very
suitable techniques for inverting large sparse linear
systems. SIRT is common implementation of
Kaczmarz’s method in seismic ray tomography. The
results showed that SIRT tomography can overcome
the limitation of the natural sources and produce a
good velocity image.
MICROSEISMIC
The natural sources are used to acquire data of
seismic tomography, such as mining induced
seismicity (blasting), geological structure
(fault/fracture) and cave propagation (Figure 4). The
magnitude sensitivity network is set up at -3.0 to 4.
The Seismic events are recorded by 11 geophones
and transmitted to the microseismic network.
FIGURE 4. Microseismic events during Q-1 2008 (Cave
and Subsidence Report, Geotech & Hydrology PTFI,
2008).
SIMULTANEOUS ITERATIVE
RECONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUE
Simultaneous iterative reconstruction technique
(SIRT) is common implementation of Kaczmarz’
method in seismic ray tomography. SIRT uses
modified Kaczmarz’ method.
Let ray travel through the discrete model
fuction as

J
P = ∑ J =1 ( M j S j )
where Mj is estimated model function for the jth
cell, Sj is the raypath length of the ray within the jth
cell, and J is the total number of cells in the gridded
target. We modify the index notation of equation (1)
to include a projection value for every ray. If Pi
represents the projection, predicted fot he ith ray,
then the equation is rewritten as
j that wave will propagate from one point with the
Pi = ∑ j =1 ( M j S ij ) for i = 1, ..., I
I is the total number of rays, Sij is the path length of
the ith ray through the jth cell, and Mj is the discrete
estimate of the model functio for the jth cell and J is
the total number cells. Then, we conduct forward
modeling ( ray tracing ) using equation (1) ,
j
Pi pre = ∑ Si j M est
j ,
j =1
RESULT AND DISCUSSION
(1)
The imaging results of tomography using SIRT
method are shown in following figure 5 (a,b,c,d).
Figure 5 shows the tomography result of DOZ
subsurface from 3150 m – 3350 every 50 meters.
Gray line is represent geology model of DOZ in 3146
meters elevation and red line is our intepretation of
the cave. Actually, the basic idea for monitoring in
DOZ is Fermat’s principle. Fermat’s principle states
(2) fastest tracks. The word “fastest” is used to
emphasize that the tracks will produce the shortest
travel-time. More over, travel time is proportional to
density. As we know, empty zone is bounded by hard
rocks ( high density ) and the wave will travel and
spread over the rocks.

for all rays i = 1,.... I (3)

The correction for each cell was found by

examining the rays cut through that cell and
averaging the corrections recommended by each ray.
This operation is defined for the jth cell,

J
1 i
∆M j =
W
∑ ∆
i=1
Mj
j

J
Pi obs − ∑ S i j ' M est
j' FIGURE 5a. Tomography result at elevation 3150-3200
1 m.
=
Wj
∑S
i =1
ij
J ' =1
J

∑S
J ' =1
2
ij

for j = 1, ... , J (4)

The weight Wj is the number of rays intersecting

the jth cell or some other suitable ray density weight
used to obtain an average correction ∆Mj. Then,
determine the new model estimate from the average
model corrections ∆Mj

M J( new) est = M est

j + ∆M j ,
j = 1, ....,J (5)
The average correction is applied to the current
estimated model function to get an updated or new
estimated model function.
FIGURE 5b. Tomography result at elevation 3150-3200
m.

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 As a result, we can monitor the DOZ using
tomography. Cave monitoring takes a part to monitor
and distinguish the compact zone and air zone inside
the DOZ region and it is clearly seen from the
figures, there are two main area of our result. First is
compact zone (hard rock) and second is empty zone
which is represented by the red line. The empty zone
(air) means there is no material/rocks inside the
DOZ. This may occur indeed, because DOZ uses
block cave method to produce the ores where it
collapse due to it’s own weight. Therefore, it is
possible to create the empty zone (air) inside DOZ.
In figure 5d, we can see there is no empty zone
anymore in that elevation. So, it can be concluded
it’s still compact and full of hard rock up 3350
meters elevation of DOZ.
FIGURE 5c. Tomography result at elevation 3200-3250
m 1. T. When Lo, and P.L. Inderwiesen, Fundamentals of
FIGURE 5d. Tomography result at elevation 3250-3250
m.
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These informations are very important to support
mine activities and operation in PT. Freeport
Indonesia. It can be used to determine the
development of mine operation in the future. In
advance, this research can be developed to determine
the cave boundary and elastic constants in every area
and many more.
CONCLUSIONS
Tomography using SIRT method is useful tool for
imaging the cave profile inside the DOZ of PT.
Freeport Indonesia. The cave information is very
important to support mining operation in DOZ. At
the future, this method will be used as a powerful
method to determine and delineate the development
of cave boundary in DOZ.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank management of
PT. Freeport Indonesia and WISFIR Laboratory
Bandung Institute Technology for permission to
publish this paper. Thank to Mr. Erwin Riyanto as
my partner and also my adviser to finish this
research. Special thank to Mr. Bagus Endar Bakhtiar
Nurhandoko as my supervisor who always gives me
support and guidance. The contribution made by all
personnel involved in this paper is gratefully
acknowledged.
REFERENCES
Seismic Tomography: Geophysical Monograph 6,1994
2. Mendecki, A.J., Seismic monitoring in mines:
Chapman & Hall, 1997.
3. Syaifullah, T., Widijanto, E., Srikant, A, Water Issues
in DOZ Block Caving Mine PT. Freeport Indonesia:
Water In Mining Conference, Expanded Abstracts,
2006, pp. 361 – 368.
4. W.D. Ortlepp, Rock Fracture and Rock Burst – an
ilustrative study, Proceedings South African Institute
of Mining and Metallurgy, 1997.