Geospatial Insight are excited to announce the launch of the new MOTIONMONITOR service, in collaboration with Terra Motion Limited and the University of Nottingham, specifically designed to monitor ground movements in and around mine tailing dams and provide early warning of potential structural failure.
Terra Motion and University of Nottingham have developed the revolutionary Advanced Pixel System using Intermittent SBAS (APSIS©) which, uniquely, measures ground surface movements with millimetre-level accuracy over all terrain types. Utilising the APSIS algorithm MOTIONMONITOR will provide mining companies with a comprehensive and reliable solution to monitor multiple tailings dam in one platform and provide early warning of potential failure without the need for ground sensor or infrastructure installation.
The University of Nottingham and Durham University recently published results to show that the 2019 Brumadinho dam collapse in Brazil could have been foreseen using the APSIS algorithm. Lead author of the study Dr Stephen Grebby concluded that using this technique “the failure date could have been predicted to within a week of it happening. Crucially, this prediction would have been possible around 40 days prior to the collapse, allowing time for a warning to be raised that the dam was becoming unstable.”
The full findings are available in the paper ‘Advanced analysis of satellite data reveals ground deformation precursors to the Brumadinho Tailings Dam collapse’ in the Nature journal Communications Earth & Environment.
The collaboration of these organisations combine pioneering innovative tech with data analytics and visual intelligence to deliver an early warning service which has the potential to revolutionise the mining industry.
“Terra Motion are proud to be working with Geospatial Insight to bring this product to market. We see it as a perfect match between the unique capabilities of our APSIS© processing techniques and their ability to develop it into a commercial actionable risk warning service.”
Andy Sowter, CTO, Terra Motion Limited
“MotionMontior is a ground-breaking approach to monitoring and highlighting ground surface movement around and within mine tailings facilities, helping to identify potential catastrophes before they happen and thereby preserving life, livelihoods, reputation and property.”
Dave Fox, CEO, Geospatial Insight
