Preconditioning by hydraulic fracturing

for block caving in a moderately

stressed naturally fractured orebody
Andre van As, AVA Mine Geotechnical Services, Australia
Rob Jeffrey, CSIRO Petroleum, Australia
Enrique Chacónn, Victor Barrera, El Salvador Division, Codelco Chile

Abstract
Preconditioning by hydraulic fracturing is a tool with the potential to modify the caveability and fragmentation of an
orebody prior to and during mining. A field-scale experiment was carried out in the Lift 2 orebody at Northparkes E26
mine near Parkes, NSW to measure hydraulic fracture growth and assess the affect of the fracturing on rock mass
strength and in-situ stress.
The 9700 level exploration drill drive located near the top of the Lift 2 orebody provided an ideal site for the experiment.
Eight fan arrays of NQ-size exploration drill holes had already been drilled laterally and down into the ore from this level.
These holes provided excellent access for placing fracture-monitoring instrumentation across the hydraulic fracture
growth path. Site characterisation work included, geology, rock properties, overcore and micro-frac stress
measurements, and seismic velocity profiling. In addition, a microseismic monitoring array was extended to the site by
adding to the existing mine microseismic array. Cross-hole seismic measurements were conducted before, during and
after the hydraulic fracturing period. In addition, the fracture geometry and hydraulic fracture volume were also remotely
monitored using eighteen sensitive tiltmeters. Stress change associated with the fracturing was recorded using three
ANZI cells located 15 to 40 m above the hydraulic fracture plane.
When combined with previous data from mining and mapping a hydraulic fracture placed into the country rock ahead
of development tunnels, the experiment provided a comprehensive data set to define and understand hydraulic fracture
growth in naturally fractured rock. The effect of hydraulic fractures on rock mass caveability and resulting fragment size
during caving is being assessed using this data.
This paper summarises the measurements made and important results obtained that will assist in future design and
implementation of hydraulic fracturing as a preconditioning tool for cave mining.

1 INTRODUCTION International Caving Study (ICS II), and formed a major

In the past the use of cave mining has been limited to
massive ore bodies characterised as having a fairly uniform
grade distribution, large aerial extent (i.e. foot print) and
relatively weak rock mass strength (such as kimberlites). In
recent years several low-grade, massive ore bodies have
been discovered at depth, which due to low metal prices,
can only be exploited profitable through the adoption of the
block cave mining method. Unlike the typical caving ore
bodies of the past, many of these new deposits comprise
highly competent rock masses and their geometrical
dimensions (i.e. foot print and block height) are often
dictated by their economic viability. Hence, the rejuvenated
interest in cave mining of more competent ore bodies has
forced the industry to reassess the suitability of current
caveability predictive tools for stronger rock masses whilst
simultaneously investigating the prospect of rock mass
preconditioning and its potential to enhance the caving
characteristics of these deposits.
The successful hydraulic fracture cave inducement
program conducted at Northparkes Mines has lead to a
considerable interest in the technique with respect to its
application to cave mining. van As and Jeffrey (2000) have
demonstrated the technique to be an extremely cost
effective means of cave inducement and state that it also
has the potential to be applied to cave preconditioning,
ultimately reducing the risks associated with caving hard
rock orebodies.
Recent site experiments were conducted at both
Northparkes and Salvador Mines, partially supported by the
component of the ICSII research. The experiments were
specifically designed to measure hydraulic fracture growth
in competent and well jointed rock masses and examine
their influence on the rock mass.
This paper describes the Northparkes Mines site
experiments, provides an overview of the findings and
discusses the implications for cave preconditioning.
2 WHAT IS HYDRAULIC FRACTURING?
Hydraulic fracturing involves isolating a section of a
borehole, often by means of a straddled packer system.
Once sealed, fluid is pumped into this straddled area
causing the fluid pressure to rise, generating tensile hoop
stresses along the axis of the borehole which eventually
exceed the tensile strength of the rock, causing a fracture to
form. The orientation of the fracture plane is defined by the
orientation of the minimum principal stress whilst the
propagation of the fracture into the rockmass will continue
as long as the pumping rate exceeds the rate of fluid loss
into the rock and as long as the pressure in the fracture
exceeds the far-field minimum stress magnitude..
3 PRECONDITIONING EXPERIMENTAL SITE
Two site experiments were conducted at Northparkes Mines,
the first involving mapping a hydraulic fracture by mining it and
the second, the main preconditioning experiment, involved a
multiple fracture treatment within a well instrumented region of
the proposed E26, Lift 2 block cave.

Massmin 2004 Santiago Chile, 22-25 August 2004 535

 The Mine-Through experiment involved placing two
hydraulic fractures well ahead of an advancing tunnel. The
fracture fluids contained fluorescein and plastic proppants
which enabled the fractures to be visually traced and
inspected upon mine through. The objective of mine-
through experiment was to map the hydraulic fractures,
recording their orientation, residual width and interaction
with the natural jointing. More detail on this experiment can
be found in the paper by van As and Jeffrey (2002).
The main preconditioning experiment involved creating
several hydraulic fractures at various intervals within a
region of the proposed E26, Lift 2 block cave. The site
location was selected primarily due to its abundance of
diamond drill holes which would allow for a dense array of
monitoring instrumentation to be installed in and around the
hydraulic fractures. A single HQ hole, drilled between these
existing monitoring holes, was used as the ‘injection’ hole
along which all of the hydraulic fractures were placed.
Figure 1: Location of the preconditioning experiment site
with respect to the Northparkes block caves.
4 GEOLOGY AND GEOTECHNICAL
The Lift 2 orebody generally comprises four main rock
types. Central to the orebody is a quartz monzonite
porphyry body around 70 metres wide, to the east is a biotite
quartz monzonite which is a massive equ-granular unit that
comprises the greater proportion of the rock mass within the
Lift 2 block. To the west of the monzonites is a volcanic
sequence, dominantly porphyritic lavas, through which a
coarsely crystalline, diorite sill has intruded. The diorite sill
measures up to 80 metres thick, dips into the orebody at
approximately 35 to 45 degrees and is the main unit in
which the preconditioning experiment was conducted.
In general the rock mass is well jointed and rock type is
the dominant control on variations in rock mass properties.
The rock mass has been classified using Laubscher’s
MRMR system, Laubscher, (2000), with the Rock Mass
Rating (RMR) ranging from a minimum of 41 in the volcanics
to a maximum of 64 in the biotite quartz monzonite. The in
situ stress measurements conducted at the experiment site
536 Santiago Chile, 22-25 August 2004
indicate a horizontal major principal stress of approximately
40 MPa whilst the minor principal stress is subvertical with
a magnitude of around 10 MPa. It should be stated however
that these measurements are slightly different to those
measured elsewhere in the mine and this is thought to be
attributed to the presence of the diorite sill.
5 MONITORING AND INSTRUMENTATION
Hydraulic fractures were propagated from a central
injection hole out into the rock mass, intersecting the
adjacent monitoring holes as the fracture grew. The arrival
time and pressure provided by the intersections measured
the fracture growth rate, pressure and orientation, including
their variation over time. The effectiveness of different
fracture fluids and proppants in inducing changes to the
rock mass was also investigated.
The experiment site was located on the 9700mRL level,
which is 250m above the Northparkes E26 Lift 2 extraction
level. The 9700mRL level was previously used as an
exploration drilling level and hence contains numerous NQ
diamond drill holes, drilled from eight cuddies spaced at
25m centres along a north-south oriented drill drive (refer to
Figure 2). Each cuddy contains a fan of holes drilled with
varying dips yet with roughly the same bearing. The
injection hole used to place the hydraulic fractures was
located centrally such that all of the surrounding holes could
be effectively used to monitor the hydraulic fractures. The
instrumentation was grouped into near-field and far-field
monitoring systems with most of the near-field
instrumentation installed in the drill holes nearest to the
injection hole. The far-field instrumentation included the
seismic monitoring system, the downhole seismic system
and an array of tiltmeters located throughout the mine.
The positioning of these instruments is illustrated in
Figure 3, and is summarised as follows:
• The injection hole was an HQ hole drilled from cuddy 5
with a dip of 560 towards 1180 east.
• ANZI stress cells were installed in a hole directly above
the injection hole with the cells located between 15 – 25m
from the nearest fracture to 40 – 48m from the furthest
fracture.
• Piezometers and extensometers were installed in 4 holes,
one hole immediately below the injection hole in cuddy 5,
Figure 2: Plan of the 9700 mRL level, showing the site
layout and drill holes.
Massmin 2004
 two in the steepest holes in cuddy 4 and one in the Table 1: Summary of hydraulic fracture
steepest hole in cuddy 6. preconditioning treatments at Northparkes.
• Packer systems, each containing down-hole pressure
transducers, were lowered down four holes. Single Fracture Straddle top Fluid Vol.
packers were installed 30m from the collar in one hole at (metres) (m3)
cuddy 6, one in cuddy 4 and one in cuddy 3. A straddle
packer system with a 25m long straddle was installed in 1 79.76 water 11.6
D284 in cuddy 6 with the top of the straddle located
initially at 81.5m. 2 79.76 water 6.4
• A geophone used as a receiver for the down-hole seismic 3 99.36 water 7.9
measurements (during the fracturing process) was
lowered down the steepest hole in cuddy 3. 4 93.76 water 10.6
• All of the remaining drill holes were used simply as open 5 96.56 water 9.3
holes. Any intersection of the hydraulic fractures with
6 110.56 water 10.3
these holes resulted in water flowing from the hole collars
and provided useful information on both the geometry of 7 79.76 xlinked gel 10.8
the fracture and its propagation rate. 13 96.56 gel/water 12.5
• The mine microseismic monitoring system consisted of 16
tri-axial accelerometers and five uni-axial geophones.
Sampling rates for all accelerometers was set at 6 KHz so tiltmeter monitoring and from the stress change cells.
as to ensure the detection of extremely small events. Analysis of the tiltmeter data also provides information
• Finally, an array of 19 tiltmeters were installed, 13 were about the fracture volume while the stress change
located on the 9700 mRL level, 5 were located on the monitoring provides information about the stress change
9800mRL level and one was located in a conveyor drive induced by each fracture and the type of fracture growth
on the 9770mRL level. (opening or shear).

6.1 Fracture Pressure Analysis

Analysis of the treating pressure response can be used to
determine the general mode of fracture growth, the amount
of fluid lost from the fracture during the treatment via leakoff,
the pipe friction and fracture entry loss, and the minimum
principal stress magnitude. For example, fracture 13 (Figure
xx) has been analysed in detail. Figure xx contains a G-
function plot of the falloff data from which the pressure
associated with closure of the natural fractures and of the
hydraulic fracture have been determined. Closure of the
natural fractures causes a decrease in the fluid loss rate.
The closure of the hydraulic fracture is a measure of the
minimum principal stress in this part of the rock mass. A
value of 19.2 MPa for the closure stress is indicated.

Figure 3: Isometric view of the 9700 mRL level depicting the

instrumentation layout

6 MONTORING RESULTS

The hydraulic fractures were placed using a straddle

packer tool that exposes 0.5m of the open hole to fracture
pressure. A down hole pressure transducer is located at the
top of the top packer in this tool and measures the fluid
pressure as it enters a 20mm diameter mandrel tube that
carries it into the straddle section. A small pressure drop,
therefore, occurs between the transducer and the open hole
section.
Table 1 provides a summary of the 8 fracture treatments
carried out during the preconditioning experiment. Fractures
9 through 12 are not listed since injection was limited to a
few litres per minute and a higher rate treatment was not
carried out for these injections.
Intersections were recorded for most treatments with
several piezometer, extensometer, and packer monitoring
points. The fracture orientation was obtained from the
Figure 4: Summary of fracture 13 showing bottom-hole
pressure, injection rate, and pressure in monitor hole D284.
The pressure declined throughout the treatment which is
an indication of continued fracture growth with an
approximate radial geometry. The sharp increase in
pressure a D284 corresponds with arrival of the hydraulic
fracture at this monitor hole and provides a direct measure
of the fracture growth rate. The pressure in D284 after the
fracture arrival gives a measure of the pressure in the
hydraulic fracture at this location away from the injection
point. However, loss of fluid from the hole into other
fractures acts as a pressure regulating mechanism which

Massmin 2004 Santiago Chile, 22-25 August 2004 537

means the recorded pressure is only a lower bound on the
pressure in the fracture itself.

Figure 6: History match of fracture treatment 1.

fracture is predicted by the model to grow to a radius of

about 30m and a maximum width at the injection hole of 2.2
mm. Figure xx shows the model-predicted shape of the
fracture, with the center of the fracture moving east of the
Figure 5: Pressure falloff after shut-in of fracture 13. injection point

The efficiency of a fracture treatment is defined as the

ratio at any time of the injected volume to the volume stored
in the fracture itself. Based on analysis of the falloff data, the
fracture efficiency at shut-in for fracture 13 can be estimated
as (Nolte, 1989)

Gc
η = , (1)
2 + Gc

where Gc is the value of the G-function at fracture

closure. Using this relationship, an efficiency of 52 percent
is found.

The fracture closure pressure implies a minimum principal

stress of 19.2 MPa which is about 7 MPa higher than the
minimum stress measured by overcoring at the 9700 level
tunnel. Fracture 13 is 84m vertically lower than the elevation
of the overcore test, which is expected to result in an
increase in the sub-vertical minimum stress by about 2.2
MPa. Furthermore, the fracture site is located inside the
diorite dyke which may be acting as a stress concentrator
because of its higher elastic modulus.
In contrast to these effects, there is a decreasing
minimum stress trend across the 80 to 110m interval
fractured. The ISIP (Instantaneous Shut-In Pressure) values
recorded after each fracture show a gradient in the minimum
principal stress exists at this site. The ISIP values are upper
limits for the minimum stress but will reflect the change in
minimum stress with position. The ISIP measured gradient
in stress is minus 0.06 MPa per meter into the hole. Such a
strong gradient is expected to significantly affect the
hydraulic fracture growth, causing the fractures to grow
more in the direction of lower stress. Hence, the fractures
created are expected to have grown along their strike
direction and more to the east than to the west. The
existence of the measured stress gradient is consistent with
a stress shadow caused by the overlying Lift 1 abutments
and mined area (see Figure 1).
Fracture 1 at the site has been history matched using a
pseudo 3D hydraulic fracture model. Figure 6 contains a plot
comparing the modelled and measured data for this
treatment.
Measured pressure and fracture size are shown on this
plot with a reasonable match obtained. A minimum stress of
20 MPa and a rock modulus of 77 GPa were used in the
model, perhaps reflecting the stiffer diorite dyke. The
Figure 7: Plan view of fracture 1 showing biased growth to
the east.
6.2 Tiltmeter Monitoring of Fractures
An array of 19 tiltmeters was deployed to monitor the
hydraulic fractures formed in the rock mass. Each tiltmeter
measures the horizontal gradient of the vertical
displacement at its location. Tiltmeter monitoring of
hydraulic fractures is a commercial service in the petroleum
industry and Pinnacle Technologies provided the tiltmeters
at the site.
As a hydraulic fracture grows and opens, it induces
displacements in the surrounding rock. A tiltmeter located
remote from the fracture will measure the tilt associated with
these displacements. Analysis of such tilt data is an inverse
modelling problem. The goal of the inverse modelling is to
find a fracture with opening and orientation that produces
tilts at all measurement points that are the best fit to the
measured data.
The instruments at Northparkes were located more than
three fracture radii from the hydraulic fracture which means
only fracture volume and orientation can be determined (not
fracture length, width, and height) (Lecampion et al., 2004).

538 Santiago Chile, 22-25 August 2004 Massmin 2004

 Table 2: Tiltmeter analysis results. The best fit line, using a power law model, is given by:
L = 8.15t 0.46 (2)
Frac Depth Dip Strike Efficiency
(metres) (deg) (deg) % where L is the fracture half-size (radius for a circular
fracture) and t is pumping time in minutes. Hydraulic fracture
1 80 18 E 57 29 growth for ideal geometry models follows a power law
behaviour which is motivated using a power law fit to the
2 80 16 W 136 30 measured data. Equation 2 can be used to determine a
3 99.6 26 E 27 56 pumping time that will produce fractures of a desired size at
Northparkes. This empirical approach can be improved by
4 94 23 E 32 47 fitting individual fracture treatments. A numerical model with
5 96.7 23 E 32 51 parameters that fit the average growth curve can be used to
vary the injection rate and volume as part of a
6 110.7 11 E 80 49
preconditioning design exercise.
7 80 11 E 71 30 Extensometers measurements recorded 0.15 to 0.2 mm
13 96.7 17 E 59 34 of opening during treatments with water and 1 to 1.9 mm of
opening for the crosslinked gel treatment. Measured
maximum pressure response at monitor holes was 19 to
Results from analysis of the tilt data are given in Table 2. 20.4 MPa, which is about equal to the estimated minimum
The Pinnacle and CSIRO analysis of the data gave stress at each depth. It appears likely that other fractures in
essentially similar orientation results and CSIRO results are each monitor hole opened at about this pressure and acted
shown. as pressure regulators. These pressure measurements then
The fractures were found to be subhorizontal and dipping serve to confirm the minimum stress value determined from
to the east in all cases except for fracture 2 which was falloff data and provide a lower limit for the pressure in the
interpreted to dip to the west. However, fracture 1 and 7, at fracture.
the same depth as 2 were both found to dip to the east. The
azimuth strike of the subhorizontal hydraulic fractures is less 6.4 Stress Change Monitoring
well defined by the tilt data than is the dip. A strike to the NE Stress change was measured during each treatment
is consistent with the overcore stress data for the site and using three ANZI stress change cells (Mills, 1997) installed
with local failures in tunnels observed nearby the site. The in a BQ-size borehole drilled just to the north and above the
fracture volume determined from the tilt analysis allows the injection hole. Each cell contains 18 strain gauges on an
fracture treatment efficiency to be calculated. The efficiency inflatable packer that is cemented to the borehole using a
listed in Table xx is the volume of the fracture at the end of special epoxy. More detail of the use of these cells can be
pumping divided by the total fluid volume injected. The found in Mills et al. (2004) in these proceedings.
numerical fracture model history match provides an The stress changes displayed consistent responses to the
estimate of fracture treatment 1 efficiency of 26 percent, start and end of injection for each fracture treatment. The
which compares well with the 29 percent calculated from the magnitude of the maximum stress change observed varied
tiltmeter analysis. from 0.5 to 1.4MPa for distances of 15-40m from the
Tiltmeter monitoring of the fractures provides a reliable fracture plane during the treatments using water. The
method to remotely determine the fracture orientation and maximum stress changes measured for the cross-linked gel
can be used to provide rapid feedback during treatment varied from 2.3 to 3.3MPa at 15-25m from the
preconditioning operations. Fracture growth rate and size fracture plane.
must still be determined by direct measurement at Water treatments resulted in a residual stress change,
monitoring boreholes combined with fracture modelling. measured several hours after the treatment, of about
0.5MPa (0.2-0.6MPa). The cross linked gel treatments
6.3 Fracture Monitoring by Borehole Instruments. resulted in a residual stress change of about 1.5MPa (1.0-
Packers were used to monitor pressure in four holes and 2.1). These residual stresses are expected to have
grouted-in extensometers and piezometers were used in decreased further with time but logging system signal drift
four other holes at Northparkes. These instruments provided did not allow for longer term monitoring.
data on fracture growth rate, pressure and opening. The maximum stress change vector can be used to help
Figure 8 contains a summary of the fracture growth data determine the orientation of the hydraulic fracture. East
obtained from the direct intersection data. dipping subhorizontal hydraulic fractures were consistent with
the orientation of these stress change vectors provided the
hydraulic fractures grew more to the east than west. This
fracture growth mode is supported by the ISIP measurements
and stress gradient discussed in section 6.3 above. The
numerical modelling of fracture 1 took account of this
measured stress gradient, with the result that the fracture
grew more in the east direction as shown in Figure 7.

6.5 Micro Seismics

Figure 8: Measured fracture growth at site.
The flurry of seismic activity associated with hydraulic
fracturing was unexpectedly high and in some cases the
intensity of the activity lead to communication bottlenecks
in the acquisition system resulting in a loss of data. In
addition the system rejection rate (i.e. the number of
associated waveforms defined as noise) proved
significantly higher during the injection period, where a
large number of associated waveforms appeared to
contain more than one event, making processing
ambiguous and consequently leading to the rejection of

Massmin 2004 Santiago Chile, 22-25 August 2004 539

the events. Nevertheless a large number of events were
recorded and processed leading to the following findings,
De Beer and White (2003):
• Seismic activity tended to lag breakdown.
• The spatial distribution of seismic events do not seem to
‘cloud’ along a discrete fracture zone but exhibit a large
degree of scatter, thus suggesting that the fracturing
results in stress redistributions and inelastic deformations
over a large volume (hundreds of metres from the
source). This finding alone holds considerable
implications for preconditioning and particularly the
benefits of hydraulic fracturing as a preferred technique,
but may in part arise because of multiple events close to
the fracture being rejected by the system.
• There was a continuation of elevated seismic activity for
approximately 10 days after the hydraulic fracturing.
• The calculated Apparent Volume (measure of inelastic
deformation of the rock mass) increased substantially
during fracturing and continued to do so for up to a week
after fracturing. This high deformation rate has since
proved similar to that experienced during the Lift 2, block
cave undercutting process.
• The calculated Apparent Stress (measure of stress
change in the rock mass) revealed large stress changes
induced to the rock mass although small when compared
to those associated with undercutting.
6.6 Down-hole Seismics
Down-hole seismic measurements of the treated rock
mass were conducted before, during and after hydraulic
fracturing.
Measurements taken during fracturing revealed that the
travel-time increased, over a distance of 91 metres, by 2.0
ms (ie 6.7 %), De Beer and White (2003). Thus the concept
of a ‘fracture zone’ where the fracture fluid penetrates,
opens, shears and propagates surrounding fractures
stemming off the primary conduit fracture/s seems to
provide a more plausible explanation than a discrete
fracture. However in contrast to this observation, the
propped fracture at the mine through site was mapped as a
primary single fracture 1 to 2 mm wide at most locations.
Measurements conducted after fracturing continued to
show a reduction in velocity around the fracture zone
although not as pronounced as those measured during
fracturing. The implications of these low velocity regions is
expounded further in subsequent sections.
7 INDUCED ROCK MASS CHANGES
Quantifying induced changes to the rock mass as a
consequence of hydraulic fracture preconditioning can be
demonstrated through various rock mass classification
schemes. The parameters most notably affected are :-
• joint frequency (through the introduction of new hydraulic
fractures),
• joint condition (through the breaking of rock-bridges,
induced shear and the introduction of pressurised fluids),
and
• the stress regime (through increasing pore pressures, the
opening and closing of fracture systems, shearing along
fractures and a reduction of in-situ stress differences ).
Although much effort has been made to measure the
changes to each individual parameter it is difficult to
attribute exact changes to specific parameters. Thus
calculating a preconditioned rock mass rating from
individual parameters, although instructive, is in most cases
speculative. However, quantifying the cumulative affects
induced to the rock mass can be reliably accomplished
through the application of seismic data, namely seismic
profiling and microseismic emissions. Several researchers
540 Santiago Chile, 22-25 August 2004
have demonstrated strong correlations between rock mass
characteristics and seismic P-wave velocities (VP) and have
subsequently derived equations which can be used to verify
and validate both individual rock mass parameters and their
cumulative affects.
Barton (1991) established a correlation between Q and
VP, for hard rock below 500m depth where:
Vp = 5.0 + 0.5logQc (3)
Other relationships established between VP and rock
mass parameters include those with RQD and fracture
frequency, e.g. Sjogren, et al. (1979), Palmstrom (1996),
and Tanimoto and Ikeda (1983). In general, VP decreases
with increasing fracture frequency, decreasing RQD,
increasing porosity, decreasing density and increasing fluid
content.
Results from the hydraulic fracturing preconditioning
experiment at Northparkes Mines revealed a decrease in
the post fracturing VP of around 15%. This equates to a
increase in the fracture frequency of between 5-8
fractures/m, a drop in RQD of around 25-30 and a reduction
in Q from around 3.8 to 1.2. A similar change could be
demonstrated using the MRMR system where speculated
changes to the various indices reduced the IRMR from
around 58 to 46. It must be emphasised however that these
induced changes are dependant on the character of the
initial rock mass to begin with, i.e. a highly fractured, weak
rock mass is less likely to be influenced by preconditioning
than sparsely fractured, homogenous hard rock. Boadu
(1997) suggested that once a rock mass has fractured such
that the VP has decreased by approximately 25% of its
intact rock value, it becomes insensitive to further increases
in fracture density. Thus with respect to preconditioning this
finding implies that there is a critical fracture frequency
and\or joint condition value below which preconditioning is
ineffective. However, in terms of improving the caving
characteristics of a rock mass one may argue that a rock
mass insensitive to preconditioning is one which does not
require preconditioning.
8 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS.
The fracture treatments produced subhorizontal fractures
that extended from 30 to 50m from the injection point. The
orientation of the fractures formed was consistent with the
measured stress field. Growth of the fractures was affected
by stress gradients, lithology, and structure in the rock
mass. Borehole monitoring of fracture growth was the only
method tested that directly verified the size of the fracture
created. Microseismic monitoring should be able to be used
for this purpose with modifications to event logging and
analysis. Tiltmeter monitoring provided the best data on
fracture orientation, which was confirmed by stress change
monitoring after accounting for non-symmetrical fracture
growth effects. Stress change monitoring provides a direct
measure of the induced stress around the fractures and can
be used to discriminate between shear and opening mode
fracture growth.
There is no doubt that the measured changes induced to
the rock mass as a direct result of hydraulic fracture
preconditioning are significant and should consequently be
realised through a reduction in primary fragmentation,
improved caveability and enhanced caving rates. Figures 9
and 10 demonstrate examples of the anticipated effects of
preconditioning calculated for the Northparkes experimental
region, from either the introduction of discrete fractures or a
fractured zone, as discussed in the preceding section.
The next stage of preconditioning research should
therefore focus on acquiring cave performance data that
can be used to validate these rock mass changes.
Massmin 2004
Unfortunately the mining industry, with a few exceptions,
has yet to invest in adequate cave propagation and
fragmentation monitoring tools and resources from which
cave performance can be evaluated
Figure 9: The effects of preconditioning demonstrated on
Laubscher’s Stability Chart (2000).
Figure 10: The effects of preconditioning demonstrated on
primary fragmentation predictions.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge Northparkes
Mines, CSIRO Petroleum and the International Caving
Study II for supporting this research. Thanks also to iGeo
Massmin 2004 Santiago Chile, 22-25 August 2004
Ltd for their work on the seismic profiling and microseismic
monitoring, Ken Mills for his analysis of the ANZI cells,
Pinnacle Technologies and Brice Lecampion for their
analysis of the tiltmeter data and Tim Fergusson, Kevin
Quinlan and Anthony Coleman for all their work installing
and monitoring the instrumentation and operating the
pumping equipment.
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