Mine Commencements & Closures

What are Mine Commencements & Closures Services?

Whether it’s a greenfield or brownfield mining site, often there isn’t sufficient mapping data of an area to begin mine design in terms of office locations, roads, run-of-mine stockpiles, waste dumps, tailing storage facility layouts, accommodation camps and airports.

Land surveys has surveyors experienced in mine start-ups who can use our UAV’s, hydro boat, scanners and terrestrial equipment to supply full-detail digital data for planning and up-to-date as-built surveys from the time a mine commences through to its closure.

How do Mine Commencements & Closures work?

Mine commencement can include undertakings such as:

  • initial as-builts of all the services that are installed, creating services plans, including underground utility mapping;
  • mobile mapping of roads, and pits and dumps;
  • UAV survey of complete lease for accurate cleared area, roads, tracks, heritage areas, watercourses, Complete resurveys for authorised mine plans; and
  • volumes of existing umps, topsoil piles, windrows or water bodies.

Any of these activities can also be used to prepare statutory plans for suspension or closure lodgement to the relevant governing authorities. These plans are part of the statutory plan requirements.

Utilising Mine Commencements & Closures Services

Mines need to submit within a year of opening an updated plan on potential suspension or closure of a mine. For longer-life mines, there may be requirement for addition plan lodgement during their operational phases.

This data provides a snapshot in time of the voids, openings, dumps, infrastructure, and underground workings. This information is paramount for planning of environmental requirements on site and can also be used for emergency response purposes. On an operational level the plans show where mined material has been moved from and to where.

Benefits of Mine Commencements & Closures Services

The Land Surveys team can orientate along mine-site grids, making work easier for geologists and geotechnical engineers. It can also perform gyroscopic surveys to reference sites to true north, which comes into play in underground environments and for orientating drill hole databases.

Land Surveys also has extensive experience with mine closures including resurveys for compliance, and compilation of mine survey plans for delivery to government departments. This ensures adherence to Government regulations and mitigates liability, and importantly, saves time and expense.

Additionally, our team can undertake aerial surveys for environmental reporting and compliance and can document procedures and set-up systems for the commencement of a site.
Land Surveys can also supply staff for the survey works that are required at the start such as clearing, infrastructure set-out, and the installation of spatial control marks.

What challenges can Land Surveys solve with Mine Commencements & Closures services?

Given Land Surveys knowledge of how spatial data is acquired historically and in the currently, we can piece data together in a format that is immediately usable. This includes old data from underground mines with aerial imagery, and subsurface measurements to water and electrical infrastructure.

Out multiple connections in the surveying allows us to can follow up with previous surveyors to access and utilise for background information.

We have the tools and software to professionally undertake all spatial tasks on site, with the flexibility to increase or decrease our site presence as required, thereby ensuring best value for money.

Our state-of-the-art technology ensures that we can perform all tasks to the most rigorous operating and safety standards.

Why choose Land Surveys for your Mine Commencement & Closure requirements?

Our surveyors can compile mine commencement and closure plans for submission to relevant government departments, including all development and stoping plans, long sections, lease boundary plans, and the archiving and documenting of all electronic data and reports.

Land Surveys houses the required certifications and experience to execute these survey and plan generation tasks. We make required submissions in formats that are used in current-day practice and can assist with on-line, cloud- based data archives. The harnessing of this critical is data is a major selling point in the event that a mining company opts to sell any of its operating projects.