Japanese-South African collaboration to mitigate seismic risks in deep gold mines

Abstract

Mining-induced seismicity poses a hazard to workers in deep South African mines, while natural earthquakes pose a hazard to people living in Japan and other regions of the world that are close to plate boundaries. Researchers introduce a 5-year Japanese-South African collaborative project entitled "Observational study to mitigate seismic risks in mines". The project will build on previous studies carried out by Japanese seismologists in South African mines, and will develop human and instrumental capacity in South Africa. This knowledge will contribute to efforts to upgrade schemes to assess seismic hazard and to mitigate the seismic risks in deep mines. The knowledge is also relevant to the study of the mechanisms that generate tectonic earthquakes. The project was conditionally approved in April 2009 by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), an external agency of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), an external agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is anticipated that the agreement between the Japanese and South African governments will be concluded by the end of the 2009 financial year and that research work will commence in 2010