Caving methods
Caving methods are generally capital intensive to establish, and generally associated with relatively high modifying factors, but are focused on establishing low cost, high production rate operations. The highest production rate underground methods generally include caving.
Our caving mining method client base includes kimberlite mine owners and massive type hard rock ore bodies that are steep dipping to vertical in Southern Africa, Central Africa,
Central Asia, Western Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Southern Americas.
Caving methods are associated with induced, controlled, and ongoing caving of the ore body, the host rock, or both, concurrent with, and essential to the continuous extraction of economic ore. The removal of the ore causes a gap or ‘cave’ where the orebody previously resided.
For block caving, an undercut is developed to expose the ore body over an area that allows it to naturally fail and cave, and continue to cave into the void created from extracting the ore. For sublevel caving, the production rings are blasted, and extracted from the production drifts. The host rock is allowed to cave on top of the blasted ore.