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"An inaccurate survey is valueless, in fact a poor survey is often worse than none." Words that were written by American engineer, educator and businessman Lewis E. Young in 1904 in the introduction to his book A Study of Mine Surveying Methods and Their Applications to Mining Engineering that are just as relevant today as they were 110 years ago.* "One of the essential things for a mine surveyor to appreciate is the accuracy demanded of him," Young went on, before adding somewhat pointedly, "Much litiga- tion may be avoided if the mine is proper- ly surveyed." Today, the mine survey office is equipped with instrumentation and software that would be far beyond the imagination of Young and his contemporaries. The often beautifully crafted one-off mine plans of the 19 th and early 20 th centuries have been replaced by on-screen and laser-printed documents, mass-produced on demand. And, of course, a beautiful hand-drawing was no guarantee for enhanced accuracy: mine plans were only as good as the original surveying would per- mit, and could easily be misleading if the sur- veyor had made mistakes. Even now, Young's comment about liti- gation can resonate, albeit usually from the perspective of health and safety issues rather than the claim-jumping to which he alluded later in the book. For example, a recent corporate manslaughter trial in the U.K., connected with the deaths of four workers in a small Welsh coal mine following a water inrush, heard evidence from survey- ors who had produced plans there at various times, with one of the key questions being the spatial relationship between the current and old mine workings. Current-generation surveying systems provide the mine surveyor with the means both to produce highly accurate plans, and to manipulate survey data to give 3-D represen- tations of operations and projects. In addi- tion, setting out underground has been sim- plified through the use of tunnel lasers, while laser-based leveling systems have added a new level of precision to surface excavation. Over the past 18 months, E&MJ; has looked at a range of surveying- and map- ping-related topics, including digital mine mapping (January 2013, pp.40–43), slope stability (May 2013, pp.32–41), and unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs (July 2013, pp.44–45). This report brings together these threads and some other aspects of the technology available to the 21 st century mine surveyor. Lidar Sensors from Leica In June, Leica Geosystems was one of the participants at the HxGN Live corporate conference in Las Vegas. Part of the Swedish Hexagon group, Leica Geosystems offers the mining sector both state-of-the- art surveying equipment and its Jigsaw fleet management system. Last December, the company announced the launch of its Jps Jigsaw positioning system, developed in conjunction with Locata. Tools available for underground survey- ing include Leica's boom-mounted robotic cavity monitoring system, which can pro- vide survey data from environments such as open stopes. Operated by remote control from a safe location, data are gathered and transmitted wirelessly. For processing data, Leica's fieldPro provides an interface to combine AutoCAD software with Leica total stations, enabling the surveyor to work directly on 3-D mine designs while superimposing measurement data. The system includes mining-specific 28 E&MJ; • JULY 2014 www.e-mj.com M A P P I N G & S U R V E Y I N G The Surveyor's 21 st Century Tools Laser-based scanners, GPS and sophisticated software are all available to today's mine survey office, supplementing more traditional instruments. E&MJ; reports on some of the more popular systems on the market. By Simon Walker, European Editor Locata Corp.'s networks enable deep open pits to maintain accurate positioning capabilities. * While long out of print, A Study of Mine Surveying Methods and Their Applications to Mining Engineering can be downloaded from www.forgottenbooks.org. EMJ_pg28-31_EMJ_pg28-31 7/1/14 11:46 AM Page 28