Skip to Content

The Propagation of Seismic Waves in the Presence of Strong Elastic Property Contrasts

In an active underground mine there are many seismic activities taking place, such as seismic noises, blasts, tremors and microseismic events. In between the activities, the microseismic events are mainly used for monitoring purposes. The frequency content of microseismic events can be up to few KHz, which can result in wavelengths on the order of a few meters in hard rock environment. In a mine environment, the presence of strong contrast discontinuities such as massive ore bodies, tunnels and infrastructure lead to discontinuities of displacement and/or stress tensor components, and have significant impact on the propagation of seismic waves. In order to obtain an accurate image of wave propagation in such a complex media, it is necessary to consider the presence of these discontinuities in numerical models. With the recent availability of detailed 3D rock property models of mines, in addition to the development of efficient numerical techniques and parallel computation facilities, a solution for such a problem is more achievable.  In this talk, the effects of such a contrast will be discussed.