This paper presents a numerical investigation on the influence of the mining environment on seismic sources with a focus of pillar failure mechanisms in tabular mining. We investigate the influence of the stope on seismic inversions for the scalar moment, corner frequency, source radius, stress drop and moment tensor through dynamic numerical modelling using elastodynamic modelling software, WAVE3D. The main objective is to determine whether the source parameters calculated from the recorded waveforms are due to a combination of the stope source and the pillar sources, rather than being related only to crushing of the pillar or shearing in the pillar footwall. The main finding is that the presence of stopes, and types of pillars, have a significant impact on the seismic moment and other source parameters. This is important since moment is viewed as a robust parameter on which seismic magnitude is often based, however this study indicates that moments calculated for pillar failure in a tabular stoping environments are less representative of the shearing or crushing source than originally thought.

This data was generated by an elastodynamic code called WAVE3D and consists of velocity seismograms and snapshots in time in CSV format. Eight models were run:

1. Crush source in solid (control model)

2. Crush source with a stope

3. Crush source with a rigid pillar in a stope

4. Crush source with a soft pillar in a stope

5. Shear source in solid (control model)

6. Shear source with a stope

7. Shear source with a rigid pillar in a stope

8. Shear source with a soft pillar in a stope