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Underground hard-rock mining, heard and ventilated.

Deep stopes release stress as seismic events, diesel and blasting load the air, and everyone underground needs a radio and a known location. A network of geophones, gas and airflow sensors, tag readers and access points runs along the declines and drifts, timed precisely enough to locate seismic events, and reports to a surface control room that sees every level at once.

Industry

Mining

Measurements

6

Sources cited

4

1. Mining · Underground hard-rock mining

   Stress, air and people, kilometres underground

   A deep hard-rock mine is a network of declines, drifts and stopes where the rock answers every blast. Seismic events, diesel and fumes in the air, and the need to reach and account for every worker define the job. Observation underground is how the mine sees all three at once, level by level.

2. What is measured

   Geophones, gas heads and tags

   Geophones and accelerometers in boreholes record seismic events around active stopes. Gas heads measure carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and oxygen at faces, returns and refuge stations; airflow sensors watch fans and regulators. Tag readers place people and vehicles by zone, and extensometers follow convergence in drifts and pillars.

   Instruments

   Geophones · Gas heads · Airflow · Tag readers · Extensometers

3. The base node

   A cabinet that keeps time underground

   Each drift cabinet holds a base node, digitisers and an industrial gateway. The node disciplines its clock from the network’s time source, because locating a seismic event depends on precise arrival times at many geophones. It signs every reading, keeps it through a lost link and runs gas alarms locally.

4. Radio and links

   A backbone that follows the headings

   Fibre up the decline carries seismic data and timing to the surface. Private LTE serves voice, video and tele-remote control; an existing leaky feeder can stay for voice; mesh nodes reach new headings quickly and access points serve workshops and refuge stations. Every level joins the same network record.

   Radio

   Private LTE · Leaky feeder · Fibre · Mesh · Wi-Fi

5. How it works

   From a geophone to the control room

   A geophone’s waveform is digitised in the cabinet, stamped and signed by the node and carried over fibre to the edge, where events are detected and located in the mine model. Gas and fan readings pass through the industrial gateway over OPC UA, so ventilation on demand acts through existing controls.

6. From order to operation · Order

   Scope the levels and the hazards

   The scope starts from the mine’s principal hazard management plans: seismic risk, ventilation, emergency response and communication. Nexus Observatory Inc. maps each plan to the measurements it needs, level by level, and returns a design approach, a radio plan, a schedule that fits development and production, and a price per level and per service.

   Plan a deployment

7. From order to operation · Survey

   Underground survey with the mine’s teams

   Surveyors travel the declines and drifts with the mine’s ventilation, seismic and electrical engineers. They measure existing radio coverage, check cable routes, power points and cabinet positions, review borehole access for geophones and tie every position to the mine’s survey grid, so the design matches the mine plan.

8. From order to operation · Permits

   Approvals inside the mine’s own systems

   Underground work runs under the mine’s permit-to-work, hot-work and electrical rules, and equipment for hazardous locations carries the certification the jurisdiction requires. Licensed spectrum underground still follows the regulator’s route, and the design is reviewed with the mine’s engineers before anything is installed.

9. From order to operation · Build

   Build the stations for the drift

   Cabinets are built for dust, water and blasting shock, with geophone digitisers, gas heads, controllers and network equipment assembled and tested on the surface. Each station is enrolled with its identity, configured for its level and labelled to the drawing, so installation underground is connection rather than assembly.

   Open the Station Builder

10. From order to operation · Install

    Install between blasts

    Crews work to the mine’s blasting and production schedule. Fibre or feeder goes along the drifts first, then cabinets, geophones grouted in their boreholes, gas heads at the faces and returns, and tag readers at entries and refuge stations. Each position is checked, photographed and tied to the survey grid.

11. From order to operation · Commission

    Commission seismic, gas and tracking

    Each node proves its identity before it joins. Geophones are tested with calibration pulses and checked against known blasts; gas heads are bump-tested and calibrated; tag readers are walked with test tags. Ventilation-on-demand rules first run in observation, so engineers confirm them before the fans follow.

12. From order to operation · Operate

    One picture of every level

    The control room sees seismic events located in the mine model, air quality and airflow by level, people and vehicles by zone and the health of the network itself. A significant event raises an alarm with its location and size, and re-entry follows the mine’s protocol with the data in front of the decision-maker.

13. From order to operation · Maintain

    Follow the development headings

    As headings advance the network follows them: new cabinets, feeder and access points, and geophones repositioned around new stopes. Gas heads are recalibrated on schedule, software moves in rings, and every change updates the record that the mine’s engineers and the next crew rely on.

    Book field services

14. Data products

    What each team sees

    Geotechnical engineers receive located events, magnitudes and hazard maps; ventilation engineers see airflow and air quality by level; the control room and emergency coordinator see people and vehicles by zone and refuge status. Safety teams keep re-entry and exposure records, all built from the same signed readings.

    See the data products

15. Evidence

    Records an inspector can follow

    Calibration of gas heads, geophone tests, tracking walks and every alarm are kept as signed records with the node that produced them. Monitoring is designed around the mine’s principal hazard plans and the rules of its jurisdiction, and data is exchanged through OPC UA and OGC SensorThings for independent review.

    Drawn against

    WA WHS (Mines) Regulations 2022 · Ontario Reg. 854 · 30 CFR Part 57

16. What you get

    Private Wireless as a Service

    Standalone private 5G or LTE for a site, campus, port or mine: radios, core, SIMs, spectrum route and operations. Delivered as managed service and hardware + software, for industrial operators, ports, campuses, venues, public safety. Scale: Per site; fleets of sites.

    Talk to sales

17. Next step

    Plan underground hard-rock mining with us

    Tell us the site, the measurements and the rules it answers to. We reply with a survey proposal, a design and a scope for underground hard-rock mining. An engineer replies with a survey proposal and a scope, and the plan grows from one site to the network you need, at your pace.

    Plan a deploymentOpen the Station BuilderOpen the Studio

01The place and its hazards

Where it runs, and what can go wrong.

Operating contextA hard-rock mine reaches ore through shafts, declines and drifts and extracts it from stopes that redistribute stress in the rock around them. As mines go deeper, mining-induced seismicity and rockbursts become a principal hazard. Diesel fleets, blasting fumes and heat make ventilation one of the largest operating costs, and every worker underground must be reachable and accounted for.

Hazards

• Rockbursts and fall of ground triggered by mining-induced seismicity
• Diesel exhaust, blasting fumes and heat in working places
• Loss of communication and tracking during an emergency
• Fire on mobile equipment in confined headings
• Water inflow and pump failure on the lower levels

02What must be measured

What, where, how often, and under which rules.

Each measurement names where it is taken, how often, and the public standard or regulation behind it. Numbers in the sources column open the cited source below.

03The observation stack

From one base unit to a network.

The same blocks at every scale: instruments and a base node, a site with its radio, a fleet run as one, and a network federated on the open protocol.

1. 01

   Base unit

   A sealed base node in a drift cabinet reads geophones and gas heads, disciplines its clock from the network’s time source and keeps every reading through a lost link.

   Build a station →
2. 02

   Site

   One level or mining block: geophone arrays, gas and airflow stations, tag readers and access points, joined to a fibre or leaky-feeder backbone that runs up the decline to the surface.

   Plan a site →
3. 03

   Fleet

   Every level and shaft of the mine runs as one fleet, with one seismic and ventilation picture and one update ring.

   Managed offers →
4. 04

   Network

   Several mines of one company, or a mine and its surface plant, federate their records so specialists review seismicity and ventilation across operations.

   The open protocol →

• 01Seismometer / strong-motion accelerometer
• 02Gas detector (industrial)
• 03Vibration and condition monitor
• 04OT gateway (OPC UA, Modbus)
• 05Edge node (Wedge)
• 06Fibre terminal
• 07Battery case
• 08Shelter

Radio and links

Private LTE

One licensed network carries voice, video, tele-remote control and tracking, with radios placed along the drifts and the core on the surface.

Radio and links

Leaky feeder

A leaky feeder radiates along a drift like a long antenna; many mines already run one for voice, and it stays a robust fallback.

Radio and links

Fibre

A fibre backbone up the decline or shaft joins every level to the surface and carries seismic data with the timing it needs.

Radio and links

Mesh network

Mesh nodes extend coverage into new headings quickly and carry tag reads where the backbone has not yet reached.

Radio and links

Wi-Fi

Access points at workshops, refuge stations and loading points serve tablets and maintenance crews.

Edge computeSeismic processing, event location and ventilation-on-demand control run on edge servers underground or at the surface, so local alarms and fan set points never wait for a remote cloud.

PowerUnderground stations take mine power with battery backup sized to the emergency response plan, so gas and seismic monitoring, tracking and refuge communications continue through a power loss.

04How it works

From the instrument to the product.

One observation’s path, tier by tier, with the interface on every link and a bill of materials below; then how the one node grows to a site, a fleet and federated networks.

05From order to operation

Every step, from the first call to a running site.

The same crew and the same record carry the work from scope to maintenance.

1. 01 Order

   Scope the levels and the hazards

   The scope starts from the mine’s principal hazard management plans: seismic risk, ventilation, emergency response and communication. Nexus Observatory Inc. maps each plan to the measurements it needs, level by level, and returns a design approach, a radio plan, a schedule that fits development and production, and a price per level and per service. 1

2. 02 Survey

   Underground survey with the mine’s teams

   Surveyors travel the declines and drifts with the mine’s ventilation, seismic and electrical engineers. They measure existing radio coverage, check cable routes, power points and cabinet positions, review borehole access for geophones and tie every position to the mine’s survey grid, so the design matches the mine plan.

3. 03 Permits

   Approvals inside the mine’s own systems

   Underground work runs under the mine’s permit-to-work, hot-work and electrical rules, and equipment for hazardous locations carries the certification the jurisdiction requires. Licensed spectrum underground still follows the regulator’s route, and the design is reviewed with the mine’s engineers before anything is installed. 24

4. 04 Build

   Build the stations for the drift

   Cabinets are built for dust, water and blasting shock, with geophone digitisers, gas heads, controllers and network equipment assembled and tested on the surface. Each station is enrolled with its identity, configured for its level and labelled to the drawing, so installation underground is connection rather than assembly.

5. 05 Install

   Install between blasts

   Crews work to the mine’s blasting and production schedule. Fibre or feeder goes along the drifts first, then cabinets, geophones grouted in their boreholes, gas heads at the faces and returns, and tag readers at entries and refuge stations. Each position is checked, photographed and tied to the survey grid.

6. 06 Commission

   Commission seismic, gas and tracking

   Each node proves its identity before it joins. Geophones are tested with calibration pulses and checked against known blasts; gas heads are bump-tested and calibrated; tag readers are walked with test tags. Ventilation-on-demand rules first run in observation, so engineers confirm them before the fans follow.

7. 07 Operate

   One picture of every level

   The control room sees seismic events located in the mine model, air quality and airflow by level, people and vehicles by zone and the health of the network itself. A significant event raises an alarm with its location and size, and re-entry follows the mine’s protocol with the data in front of the decision-maker.

8. 08 Maintain

   Follow the development headings

   As headings advance the network follows them: new cabinets, feeder and access points, and geophones repositioned around new stopes. Gas heads are recalibrated on schedule, software moves in rings, and every change updates the record that the mine’s engineers and the next crew rely on.

06Data products and integration

What it delivers, to whom, and into which systems.

Data products

• Located seismic events, magnitudes and hazard mapsGeotechnical engineers and the mine manager
• Ventilation and air quality by levelVentilation engineers and shift supervisors
• People and vehicle location by zoneControl room and emergency response
• Re-entry and exposure recordsSafety and health teams, inspectors
• Network health and coverageMine technology team

Integration

• Mine control system and SCADAFan, regulator and pump states are exchanged over OPC UA, so ventilation on demand acts through the controls already in place.
• Mine planning and 3D modelEvents and stations are placed in the mine’s coordinate system and delivered to the planning software.
• Emergency response planTracking and refuge station status are presented to the emergency coordinator with the last known position of every tag.
• HistorianEvery series is stored in the historian with its quality flags and the identity of the node that signed it.

Exchanged through OPC UA (IEC 62541), MQTT 5, OGC SensorThings API.

07Questions buyers ask

Before you scope it.

Will it work with our existing leaky feeder?

Yes. The design can keep the feeder for voice and add a data backbone beside it, or migrate level by level. Both appear in the same network record.

Is the equipment certified for hazardous locations?

Equipment is specified with the certification each location requires under the applicable rules; where a location is not classified as hazardous, standard industrial equipment is used.

How quickly are seismic events reported?

Events are detected and located automatically at the edge and reported as soon as processing completes. The latency achieved is measured during commissioning and kept as evidence.

Who decides on re-entry after a seismic event?

The mine does, under its own protocol. The system supplies the located events, the trend and the evidence for that decision.

Can we start with one level?

Yes. One level is a complete site; the next levels repeat it on the same backbone, software and records.

08Resources

The sources behind this page.

Public standards, regulations and guidance, cited where they apply. Each applies only where its jurisdiction or scope does.

1. 1Work Health and Safety (Mines) Regulations 2022 (Western Australia)Government of Western Australia · 2022
2. 2R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 854: Mines and Mining PlantsGovernment of Ontario
3. 330 CFR Part 57: Safety and health standards, underground metal and nonmetal minesUS Mine Safety and Health Administration (eCFR)
4. 4IECEx System: certification to the IEC 60079 series for explosive atmospheresInternational Electrotechnical Commission

09Related

Use cases and solutions.

10Mining: specialized fields

Other fields of this industry.

Bring us the site.

Plan a deployment, configure a station, model it in the Studio or talk to sales. The form names who receives your details.