Determining the best places for dewatering wells in the Gohar-Zamin pit mine, using geostatistical methods

The Gohar-Zamin mine is located in the southwest of Sirjan city in Kerman province, Iran. Geology condition showed that two fault categories played an important role in the formation of crushed and weathered regions in the southern part of the pit. The spatial analysis of the Lugeon variable indicated that the hydraulic conductivity in the rock mass is very low and the groundwater flow is concentrated only in a limited number of high-transmission main gaps. The mine needs to the designing a proper system for dewatering. Hence, a Gaussian simulation method was used to determine the suitable location of the dewatering wells in the vicinity of the pit. Exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) was used to examine location maps, histograms, correlations, and variogram of the Lugeon and RQD data. The relationship between Lugeon and RQD with depth demonstrated that the minimum of RQD and maximum of Lugeon were concentrated in certain elevations. The calculated variograms of RQD and Lugeon showed good spatial continuity. Variograms of the normalized values were performed to carry out the Gaussian simulation of the RQD and Lugeonn variables. Probability and uncertainty maps of RQD and Lugeon indicated that the south-eastern parts of the pit play an important role in permeability.