The subterranean environment of Christmas Island is diverse and includes freshwater, marine, anchialine, and terrestrial habitats. The cave fauna comprises swiftlets, and a diverse assemblage of invertebrates, both terrestrial and aquatic, which includes a number of rare and endemic species of high conservation significance. At least twelve species are probably restricted to subterranean habita...

In any cave mining method a horizontal slice of rock is mined out at the base of the block to be caved by drilling and blasting. Once a sufficiently large area has been mined continuous caving initiates and propagates through the block. High stress levels are set up in the abutment zone around the perimeter of the caving area that can affect tunnel stability to a distance of 20 metres from the ...

Arenaza Cave is located in Vizcaya (N Spain) and contains important Palaeolithic rock art representations. This cave belongs to an active karstic system developed on Lower Cretaceous limestones, mainly consisting of micrites biomicrites with abundant pyrite moulds. The paintings are made directly the host or thin stalagmitic calcite crusts. limestones this area contain iron ore deposits, which ...

The prehistory of the Mammoth Cave area has been of interest to archeologists for more than a century because of the remarkable preservation in the dry cave environment. Beginning with the antiquarian search for mummified bodies in the early nineteenth century up to the most modern scientific research, Mammoth Cave has revealed important information about the Native Americans who lived near and...

Abstract Cave mining progresses to depths exceeding 1000 m and ore bodies situated in competent strong rock masses are nowadays extracted by different cave methods. Widely applied caving methods massive deposits block panel caving, inclined sublevel caving. All have common that mass caves during extraction of an body a controlled way. As result, regional stress changes occur, considerable abutm...

The degradation of subterranean habitats is believed to represent a serious threat for the conservation of obligate subterranean dwellers (troglobites), many of which are short-range endemics. However, while the factors influencing cave biodiversity remain largely unknown, the influence of the surrounding landscape and patterns of subterranean connectivity of terrestrial troglobitic communities...

This paper raises important questions about the way we approach numerical analysis in rock engineering design. The application of advanced models is essential to adequately analyze and design different geotechnical aspects pit-to-cave transitions. We present a critical review methods centered around hypothesis that model not, cannot be, perfect imitation reality; therefore, modelling large-scal...

The cavability assessment of rock mass cavability and indicating the damage profile ahead of a cave-back is of great importance in the evaluation of a caving mine operation, which can influence all aspects of the mine operation. Due to the lack of access to the caved zones, our current knowledge about the damage profile in caved zones is very limited. Among the different approaches available, p...