3D Laser Mapping has delivered a VZ-400 laser scanning system, part of the newly released Riegl V-Line range, to Pueblo Viejo Dominicana’s new gold mine in the Dominican Republic. It will be used to record construction in the process plant, calculate volumes of material displaced during land clearance and monitor civil structures for subsidence and deformation. Once the facility is operational, the scanner is also expected to be used for high precision monitoring of slopes and mining activity for site safety.
The VZ-400 can achieve accuracies of 5 mm at ranges of up to 500 m, measure up to 125,000 points/s all with a 360o field of view, even in adverse weather conditions.
“With such a large investment in this project it is essential that the preparation and construction phase is exactingly documented and that all aspects are monitored to the highest possible levels and accuracies in the safest possible manner,” commented Sean Jefferys, Chief Surveyor. “I have worked with 3D Laser Mapping in the past and know that their laser scanning hardware and mine monitoring software solutions, such as SiteMonitor, offer unrivalled performance and I am therefore confident the solution we have purchased will meet our expectations.”
The scanner will also be used to verify the work undertaken by contractors clearing the site calculating in-situ volumes of earth moved and to monitor civil structures and dumps to provide early warning of subsidence or deformation.
Pueblo Viejo Dominicana is a company jointly owned by Barrick Gold (60%) and Goldcorp (40%). Representing the largest foreign investment in the history of the Dominican Republic, Pueblo Viejo is a long life, advanced gold mining project in the Sanchez Ramirez province with a pre-production capital budget of about $2.7 billion with an additional investment of $300 million to complete a phased expansion to bring the processing plant to 24,000 t/d from the initial 18,000 t/d once Pueblo Viejo is in operation. The project remains on schedule to enter production in the fourth quarter of 2011.
