Case Histories Of Electrical And Electromagnetic Geophysics For Environmental Applications At Active Mines

Although some aspects of the environmental service industry appear to be leveling off or<br>declining, as a contractor primarily serving the minerals exploration industry, we continue to see<br>a slow but steady increase in the use of geophysics for enviromnental and engineering problems<br>at active mines. We attribute this to several factors. One reason is that mine geologists and<br>engineers are typically more familiar with geophysics (its applications and limitations) than<br>many of our environmental clients, and they are more familiar with a broader range of<br>geophysics. Other important factors are the technological advances (both hardware and<br>software) that allow data acquisition in mine enviromnents that were once too noisy or<br>complicated. In this paper, we discuss several examples of environmental and engineering<br>projects at active mines, with an emphasis on how these projects differ from our “normal”<br>enviromnental projects.