Combining Technologies for Real-time Tailings Dam Monitoring

Author: Rafael Cruz, Rogerio Weigert, Megan Hansen 

Tailings dams that store mining by-products require continuous monitoring and analysis to maintain the safety of nearby communities and employees and protect the environment from exposure to mining waste. After disastrous dam breaches in Brazil in 2015 and 2019, companies in the mineral sector have increased their investment in monitoring systems to evaluate the stability of tailings dams, take preventative actions and enable timely warnings for sudden events. 

Dedicated to safety and sustainability, Mineração Morro do Ipê (MMI), a company managing two mines in Brazil, monitors their tailings dams continuously and in real-time with Hexagon Geosystems’ state-of-the-art total monitoring sensors and software, enabling informed decisions with comprehensive data. 

A way forward: Improving safety and sustainability at mines in Brazil   

Tailings dams store waste that accumulates from processing rock to retrieve valuable minerals and metals. In Brazil and beyond, monitoring tailings dams is crucial to protect local and downstream communities and prevent environmental disasters. Embanked by earthwork structures, these dams grow incrementally as additional waste is generated across the life of the mining operation. When not carefully monitored and managed, structural failures can occur, releasing waste downstream without warning.

Two stark examples occurred in Brazil in 2015 and 2019, when, in both instances, tailings dams in the Minas Gerais region had catastrophic failures that unleashed torrents of liquefied waste, destroying local communities, contaminating the water supply and resulting in many deaths. 

However, mining companies in Brazil are now looking for a way forward to improve safety and sustainability. Mineração Morro do Ipê (MMI), founded in 2016, is a company dedicated to this mission at the Ipê and Tico-Tico mines and iron ore processing units in the Serra Azul region of Brazil. They pursue this goal through a holistic solution with continuous geodetic monitoring for structural displacements and radar monitoring to provide alerts in the case of sudden events.

Total Monitoring Solution at Ipê and Tico-Tico

Designed in consultation with Hexagon’s Total Monitoring experts, MMI acquired and installed geodetic and radar monitoring systems at the Ipê and Tico-Tico mine’s two tailings dams. These systems included the following instruments and software from Leica Geosystems and IDS GeoRadar:

• 2 Leica TM50 monitoring total stations 
• Leica GeoMoS monitoring software suite 
• 3 IDS RockSpot radars and GeoCloud platform  

Site survey solutions from the ground to the sky

In addition to the TM50 and GeoMoS components of their monitoring systems, MMI uses Leica Geosystems measurement instruments and software for survey tasks across the mine, bringing comprehensive data together from the ground and sky. This data fusion has enabled productivity gains and improved quality control. 

“Our goal was to make geodetic surveys and field inspections faster and safer, with more information to meet internal standards with high quality in less time,” says Oliveira. 

MMI installed a Leica GR50 reference station and Leica AR10 GNSS antenna to create a GNSS base station that enables 24/7 corrections to any GNSS rover receiver operating at the mine. For example, MMI uses the Leica GS18 T RTK rover for cadastral surveys of boreholes, marking mining plans and more. For aerial surveys, they use the Leica Aibot AX20 UAV, receiving precise coordinates with base station corrections that eliminate the need for ground control points. 

The collected geodetic and topographic data is processed and centralised using Leica Infinity, an all-in-one surveying office software. Infinity enables post-processing tasks, including volume calculations of material piles, with data from a variety of Leica Geosystems sensors. MMI also uses Leica Cyclone 3DR to process Aibot AX20 data. The point cloud modelling software enables surface comparisons and inspections of small area movements to generate and update contour lines, enabling up-to-date records and visualisations.

MMI’s investment in Hexagon technologies has enabled both comprehensive monitoring of the tailings dams at Ipê and Tico-Tico along with land and aerial surveys to track operations and movements across the site. With this combined data, MMI technicians have access to a clear, holistic view of the mine, enabling informed management decisions, preventative actions and rapid responses as part of a responsible, future-focused approach. 

In collaboration with the magazine MundoGEO 

Interested in monitoring? Please feel free to read further case studies, showing how our customers use our solution to improve their monitoring workflow:

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