Kidd Mine – dealing with the issues of deep and high stress mining – past, present and future

Abstract

Kidd Creek Mine is the deepest active base metal mine in the world, extending to a depth of 3 km below surface. The mine operators and engineers have met the ongoing challenges of mining sublevel open stopes at extreme depth through the utilisation of cutting edge technology, while expanding on a knowledge base encompassing 48 years of continuous operation under increasingly difficult conditions. Methods of dealing with geotechnical, logistical, and environmental challenges will be discussed, and areas for future development or pure research will be suggested