By Rich Bowden:
Government science organisation Geoscience Australia has said it is unclear if mining near the town of Kalgoorlie was responsible for yesterday’s magnitude 5.0 earthquake.
The worst quake in 50 years in the region left buildings damaged and caused a halt in mining operations.
“It may have had some contribution, but we can’t ascertain whether it was solely due to the mine or a combination of factors and stuff like that,” the ABC quoted Geoscience’s David Jepson as saying.
“It’s really hard to actually say that.”
In a statement released earlier following the quake Dr Jepson said the earthquake was the “…largest earthquake ever recorded in the Kalgoorlie-Coolgardie region. The previous largest was a magnitude 4.5 recorded in 1987.”
The statement said the earthquake, which could be felt up to 200km away from its epicentre, was “…part of the Earth’s natural dynamic processes.”
However expert opinion on whether mining was a factor appears divided with the Australian Earthquake Engineering Association reported by the Australian press as claiming mining at the nearby open cut goldfields did play a part in the quake.
Despite warnings of after shocks, mine owners said they had carried out tests and would resume operations.
“Following assessment by our geotechnical team, some areas of the Fimiston open pit have been released for progressive re-entry and it is anticipated that the Mount Charlotte underground operation will resume at the commencement of this evening’s night shift,” KCGM, who operate the mine on behalf of owners Barrick andNewmont Mining Corp said in a statement.
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The recent seismic event, the 20APR2010 magnitude 5 Kalgoorlie Earthquake, in the vicinity of the Kalgoorlie Super Pit mine may provide further evidence for the potential of open pit mines in intraplate environments to induce/trigger significant seismicity as I discussed in the recent peer-reviewed scientific paper, "Mashers Fault and the Seismicity Anticipated to be Stimulated by the Proposed Open Pit Mine at Olympic Dam" <http://cranswick.net/MashersSeismicityAnticipatedOlympicDam/>” target=”_blank”>;http://cranswick.net/MashersSeismicityAnticipatedOlympicDam/> .
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