- Title
- Understanding deep aquifer responses to interseam materials of brown coal mines
- Creator
- Rastogi, Sid; Barton, Andrew; Mackay, Rae; Kandra, Harpreet; Tolooiyan, Ali
- Date
- 2018
- Type
- Text; Conference proceedings; Conference paper
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/168129
- Identifier
- vital:13805
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781925627183 (ISBN)
- Abstract
- Brown coal deposits in the Latrobe Valley form part of the tertiary coal system of the Gippsland Basin, which is one of three major tertiary basins in Victoria, Australia. There are currently two operating brown coal mines in the Latrobe Valley (Yallourn and Loy Yang Mines) where coal is mined for power generation, with a third mine (Hazelwood) having recently ceased operations. An ongoing challenge in the mines is the management of geotechnical stability of the open pit batters. This includes the management of significant issues such as instability due to floor heave which is directly related to groundwater pressures of the underlying confined aquifers. The time dependent pressure distributions in the interseam layers are complex due to the complex heterogeneous stratigraphy of these layers. A model of the fine scale stratigraphy using Minescape has been developed to explore how pressure redistribution occurs and how the groundwater flow systems impact the interseam pore pressures due to pumping activity, leading to potential impacts on the mine batter movements. The objective of the preliminary groundwater modelling presented in this paper is to examine the hydraulic connectivity between the lower pumped aquifer layers and the upper sandy layers. The goal is to assess whether the connections are solely through vertical flows through the interbedded aquitard layers or whether there are lateral connections of the sandy layers that govern the vertical connections. A one-dimensional vertical flow model has been used for this purpose in conjunction with high quality groundwater head data from multiple depths in vertically sealed bores. The results suggest that the pressure redistributions vertically cannot be explained by vertical flows alone and that lateral exchange between layers is also occurring. This work will inform the next stage of modelling that will use the detailed stratigraphic modelling in three dimensions.
- Publisher
- Engineers Australia
- Relation
- 2018 Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium: Water and Communities, HWRS 2018; Melbourne, Australia; 3rd-6th December 2018 p. 711-722
- Rights
- Copyright © CURRAN-CONFERENCE. All rights reserved.
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
- Subject
- Lignite; Cenozoic; Brown coal
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