Mining Ground Deformation Monitoring
We use satellite InSAR to monitor ground movement across open-pit and underground mines and tailings storage facilities. Our work helps operators detect slope instability, surface subsidence, and embankment movement across an entire site - including remote ground where field instruments cannot easily reach.
Where InSAR Adds Value
| Mining setting | What InSAR detects |
|---|---|
| Open pit | Wall deformation and bench instability |
| Underground workings | Subsidence troughs and collapse zones |
| Tailings storage facility | Embankment and impoundment movement |
| Legacy or closed mines | Historical subsidence patterns |
Open-Pit Slope and Wall Stability Monitoring
Pit walls and benches often move slowly before they fail. Satellite InSAR measures this movement across the whole pit and its surrounding high walls without placing any instrument on the slope, returning tens of thousands of measurement points that turn scattered observations into a continuous picture of where ground is stable and where it is starting to move. Because the radar archive reaches back over several years, we can also reconstruct how a slope behaved before monitoring began, giving open-pit slope stability assessments a historical baseline that on-site systems alone cannot provide.
Rapid, brittle slope failures can develop faster than any satellite revisit interval. For imminent-failure alarms, satellite InSAR complements on-site ground-based radar rather than replacing it - it provides the wide-area context and the long-term trend across the whole operation, while real-time instruments cover the final warning on a specific wall.
Underground Mine Subsidence and Void Collapse Detection
Extracting ore underground removes support, and the surface above gradually settles into broad troughs or, where voids close or collapse, into localized sinkholes. This movement is typically slow, spread over a wide area, and far from any sensor - exactly the conditions where satellite InSAR performs best. We map subsidence over active workings, and over abandoned or legacy mines where no monitoring was ever installed, using the historical archive to establish how the ground has been responding over time. Our published research includes InSAR measurement of surface deformation above a flooded potash mine, where dissolution and collapse at depth drove distinctive movement at the surface - the kind of signal that is difficult to characterize by any means other than wide-area satellite measurement.
Tailings Storage Facility Stability Monitoring
Tailings storage facilities are among the largest structures on a mine site, and slow movement of the retaining embankment can precede failure. Under the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM), operators are expected to maintain ongoing surveillance of these facilities that combines instrument monitoring with inspection and favours modern remote-sensing methods for deformation surveillance. Satellite InSAR measures movement across the full embankment, the impoundment, and the ground around them, builds a multi-year record, and lets a single monitoring program screen many facilities - including remote and inactive ones - from one consistent source. High-profile failures such as Mount Polley and Brumadinho have sharpened regulatory and public expectations for exactly this kind of continuous, independent deformation record.
On actively deposited, wet tailings beaches the radar signal can be unreliable, so we treat InSAR as a complement to piezometers and on-site instrumentation, not a replacement. Its strength is wide-area surveillance and the long historical baseline that supports tailings dam monitoring and compliance reporting. A dedicated tailings dam monitoring page describes portfolio-wide surveillance in more detail.
What a Mine Monitoring Program Delivers
A mine program delivers a site-wide velocity map covering the pit, waste facilities, and surrounding ground; a displacement time series for every measurement point, so movement can be read at an individual bench, embankment section, or subsidence trough; a separation into vertical and horizontal components where two viewing geometries allow; and an interpretive report suited to risk reviews and regulators. We choose the radar band to fit the site - C-band from Sentinel-1 for wide-area coverage, X-band from Germany's TerraSAR-X and Italy's COSMO-SkyMed for fine detail on individual structures, and L-band from Japan's ALOS-2 where vegetation around the operation would otherwise cause signal loss. Results are provided as GIS layers and refreshed as new acquisitions arrive.
Why Satellite InSAR for Mine Monitoring
Satellite InSAR needs no instruments on unstable ground, covers an entire operation at once, and draws on a multi-year archive to show how a site has moved in the past as well as the present. The same approach can screen a whole portfolio of sites and provides an independent, repeatable record for regulators and stakeholders. Our small-baseline processing keeps measurements reliable over the vegetated ground that often surrounds a mine, where persistent-scatterer-only methods lose coverage, and every rate is reported with its own error estimate. Our methods are grounded in peer-reviewed research published in international remote-sensing journals. GNSS integration, independent validation, and regulatory reporting support are available on request. Mining is one of our four core monitoring services, alongside land subsidence, landslide, and oil and gas monitoring.
Frequently Asked Questions
What ground movement can InSAR detect at a mine?
Slow deformation of open-pit walls and benches, surface subsidence and sinkholes over underground workings, and movement of tailings embankments - measured across the whole site rather than at isolated points.
Can you monitor abandoned or legacy mines?
Yes. The satellite radar archive lets us reconstruct years of past surface movement even where no instruments were ever installed, which is often the only way to assess legacy or closed sites.
Does satellite monitoring replace ground instruments?
No - it complements them. InSAR covers the whole site and provides long-term history; for real-time, imminent-failure alarms, on-site systems such as ground-based radar remain essential.
How does InSAR support GISTM tailings compliance?
The Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management expects ongoing deformation surveillance that favours remote-sensing methods. Satellite InSAR provides a continuous, independent, wide-area record across the embankment and impoundment, and a multi-year baseline, which supports that surveillance alongside on-site instrumentation.
How often are results updated?
As often as the satellites revisit the site - on the order of every one to two weeks with current C-band constellations, and faster where several satellites are combined. This suits the slow, developing movement InSAR is used to track; on-site radar remains the tool for minute-by-minute warning.