Design of Horizon Waste Area 1

Walday Abeda, Richard Sisson

In the proceedings of: GeoRegina 2014: 67th Canadian Geotechnical Conference

Session: Mining Geotechnics

ABSTRACT: Waste Area 1 (WA1) was the first primary external waste disposal area for overburden material excavated at Canadian Natural™s Horizon mine. WA1 was located adjacent to the mine pit and key infrastructure for Horizon. Three weak soil units that significantly influenced the design and construction of WA1 are very soft muskeg deposits, Clearwater clay units that are weak due to glacially pre-shearing, and Marine clays in the Upper McMurray that are similar to the Clearwater in engineering characteristics. This paper describes a case history illustrating the selection of geotechnical design parameters and risk management strategy along with the subsequent geotechnical design. Performance data for WA1 are also presented.

Please include this code when submitting a data update: GEO2014_412

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