Anglo American Corporation has always viewed technological
development as vital and as such has placed research and the
implementation of new technological practices high on its
priority list. Support is given to a number of research institutes
but a significant degree of reliance is placed on in-house research
carried out at individual companies and at the Group's main
laboratory complexes. The Corporation's interests are diverse with advanced practices
and innovative technology ranging from new battery technology
with wide application to deep level shaft technology with very
specific application. In this paper, we aim to concentrate on a particular system
developed primarily for use in seismically active deep mines. The
system has proved to have far wider application and has the
potential to be further enhanced to meet the needs of users across
a broad range within the industry and even beyond. As the nature of this conference is to inform delegates of
advanced mining practices, we should simply mention that we
could have talked on subjects relating to the advances made in
deep level winding technology including winder drive and brake
control to alleviate dynamic rope loads, shaft steel design for high
pay load high speed winding and shaft safety systems such as
slack rope devices and moving lip loading facilities to cater for
rope stretch. Other areas of interest relating to refrigeration using
ice technology or non-explosive rock cutting using diamond wire
or saw technology could also have been of interest. As the South African gold mines become deeper and the
problems associated with depth become more acute, answers had
to be found and systems developed to cope with very high rock
stress and the related seismicity. The fundamental understanding
of the behaviour of the rock mass has always been important but
became critical on our mines to ensure the safe extraction of the
orebody. Basic research into and the application of physics,
applied mathematics, seismology, rock mechanics, electronics
and computer technology have helped us to develop the
Integrated Seismic System - Integrated because of the system's
abilty to monitor seismic and non-seismic sensors simultaneously
and because it encompasses data acquisition, processing and
interpretation into one system. The system which is in use at all
our gold mines has found application not only in South Africa but
also in such locations as Australia, Chile, Canada, Europe and
Japan. A highly motivated team of scientists under the leadership of
Aleksander Mendecki developed the majority of the hardware
and software needed for the system. In essence, the system allows
us real time monitoring of energy release and stress transfer data
that with the aid of modern computers is turned into useful
information. The information so obtained has allowed us to
improve our mine and extraction designs to minimise the inherent
hazards. The system has proved to be an extremely useful
management tool as substantiated by the demand for the product. The paper is intended to convey to the reader the technical
concepts and the presentation is intended to demonstrate the
usefulness of the system.