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Depressurising of Deep Underground Workings at McArthur River Mine

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Uranium, Mining and Hydrogeology

Abstract

The McArthur River mine in northern Saskatchewan is the largest single producer of uranium in the world. Most of the ore is extracted by raisebore mining methods at depths of 530 to 600 m below ground surface where pore pressures in the fractured host sandstone and gneiss are on the order of 5 MPa. Currently, ground freezing is used to isolate the ore from ground-water sources. Localized depressurising of the freezing drifts is being considered to increase their ground-stability.

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© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Liu, H., Bashir, R., Axen, S., Hatley, J., Murdock, G. (2008). Depressurising of Deep Underground Workings at McArthur River Mine. In: Merkel, B.J., Hasche-Berger, A. (eds) Uranium, Mining and Hydrogeology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-87746-2_13

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