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Quantifying Tailings Dam Risks at MIRA

Quantifying Tailings Dam Risks at MIRA (Mining Insurance and Risk Association) one hour session took place on June 11th 2020. The talk presented a comprehensive approach to address how to quantify and prioritize tailings dam risks, especially in the context of large dams’ inventories. In this blogpost we summarize the Q/A session that followed the talk, classified by theme. The full talk is viewable on Youtube    At the end we present a synthesis before some closing remarks. Understanding geology and…

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Uncertainties in risk assessments

Uncertainties in risk assessments derive from data, model and system uncertainties. In addition, these mix with soft issues like language and cultural barriers. There are for example languages where the term “risk” simply does not exist, like in Japanese. The closest word Japanese have in their language is 危険 (kiken). It means danger, risk, hazard, peril, jeopardy, pitfall all in one. Thus it fails to grasp the specific concept of risk and generates confusion. This is the reason they had…

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Distinguishing knowledge in risk assessment and risk-informed decision making

Distinguishing knowledge in risk assessment and risk-informed decision making is paramount and this post shows an example. Once upon a time we were studying large Alpine landslides in the Alps. We were working in a Swiss Federal Research Project.  We were members of a multidisciplinary team encompassing geologists, hydro-geologists, monitoring specialists and ourselves as geotechnical engineers and risk (hazard) specialists. The research project focused on landslides prone areas characterized by “continuous” movement. For those slopes, failure is a brutal and…

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CIM Tailings Workshop Series comments

Within the frame of the CIM Tailings Workshop Series  pre-workshop comments participants were asked three questions aiming at “feeding” the discussions. Below are the three questions and our “short” replies.  What is a tailings system? From a physical point of view, not in order of importance: start at the pumps in the mill, pipelines, spigots, dam(s), all water management ancillary facilities (including diversions, decants, spillways), roadway at the crown, seepage collection facilities, decant raft and pipes, monitoring, investigations and testing…

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