ROCK CORE ORIENTATION FOR MAPPING DISCONTINUITIES AND SLOPE STABILITY ANALYSIS

Abstract

Rock fabric data collected from oriented core provides supplemental information for slope stability analyses. Orientation of rock core during drilling programs has become extremely pertinent and important for slope stability and underground mining operations. Orientation is needed to provide essential data to describe the structure and properties of discontinuities encountered during the design process to understand favorable and unfavorable conditions within a rock slope and underground openings. This paper examines and discusses the limitations and benefits of four methods of obtaining borehole discontinuity orientations from drilling programs including clay-imprint, ACT I,II,III Reflex, EZY-MARK, and OBI/ABI Televiewer systems. Results, recommendations and conclusions are provided in this paper.