Safety problems with tailings ponds
Subterranean accumulation of fluids is a key driver for the loss of slope stability and a primary cause of landslides. This impacts directly the safety of mine infrastructure such as leaching heaps, open pits, access roads and any other earthen structure, including most of the retaining dams of tailings ponds.
Excessive fluid accumulation at the toe of a tailing pond dam poses a considerable risk of failure, as tragically demonstrated by the collapsed dams in Brumadinho (2019) and Samarco (2015) in Brasil (which together claimed 289 lives), and the Kingston coal ash storage pond in Tennessee (2008), the largest industrial spill in the US.
The solution
The Muon Vision platform continuously monitors the phreatic level inside a dam as well as the water content inside a storage pond, allowing the asset owner to proactively take remedial actions (e.g. identify the best location of a dewatering well) and to maximize water recovery activities in a tailing pond.
We have simulated this in a realistic scenario, by analyzing the expected response of a Muon Vision sensor placed at three locations under a tailing pond.
Knowing the dry density of the material, the measured density value was interpreted as water content across the vertical column traversed by atmospheric muons reaching the sensor.
This chart shows the expected sensitivity of this measurement, in terms of water saturation (in % points):
