Muography and Its Potential Applications to Mining and Rock Engineering

Abstract

Muography is a novel imaging method using natural cosmic-ray radiation for characterising and monitoring variation in average material density in a diverse range of objects that cannot be imaged by conventional imaging techniques. Muography includes muon radiography and muon tomography. Cosmic-ray-induced muons were discovered in the 1930’s, but rapid development of both muographic techniques has only occurred in the last two decades. With this rapid development, muography has been applied or tested in many fields such as volcano imaging, archaeology, underground structure and tunnel detection, rock mass density measurements, cargo scanning, imaging of nuclear waste and reactors, and monitoring of historical buildings and the inside of blast furnaces. Although applications of muography have already touched mining and rock engineering, such applications are still rare and they are just beginning to enter the market. Based on this background, this paper aims to introduce muography into the fields of mining and rock engineering. First, the basic properties of muons are summarized briefly. Second, potential applications of muography to mining and rock engineering are described. These applications include (1) monitoring temporal changes in the average material density of fracturing and deforming rock mass; (2) detecting geological structures and isolated ore bodies or weak zones in mines; (3) detecting a reservoir or boulders during tunnelling or drifting; (4) monitoring caving bodies to search remaining ore; (5) evaluating and classifying rock masses; (6) exploring new mineral deposits in operating underground mines and their surrounding brownfields. Finally, some issues such as maximum depth muons can reach are discussed.