The Geological Factor: San Jose: Drilling for Life

By Walter Véliz Araya and Felipe Matthews Rojas

"The gestation process of the most spectacular technical and human drama in Chilean mining history lacked a book like this. Buried, as the 33 miners, were the detailed events of this amazing saga. A huge percentage of that story had to do with ignored geologists, drillers and mining technicians with their incredible drilling machines. Walter Véliz and Felipe Matthews have written an exciting thriller about the most watched mine rescue in history, unknown to many in the details that the authors
reveal. In these pages the debt of information from news reports on the Rescue of the 33 is settled, through the recount of the process of gestation of the news, which was missing."

• Language: English
• Publisher: ebooks del sur
• Release date: Oct 1, 2015

Book preview

THE GEOLOGICAL FACTOR

San José: Drilling for Life

factorgeologico.cl

© Walter Véliz Araya 2012

© Felipe Matthews Rojas 2012

RPI nº 210.497

ISBN 978-956-927-426-8

All rights reserved.

This publication cannot be partially or completely reproduced, saved or transmitted by any mean or media, whether electronic, mechanical, optical or chemical (including copy machines), without written authorization by the authors.

Cover photograph: courtesy of Lucía Cuitiño, geologist. The image is a photomicrograph of a rock sample obtained from the 15A drilling, made using the diamond drilling technique and part of the searching drilling of the 33 San José miners. The rock corresponds to a pyroxene, biotite and amphibole quartz diorite. A hipidiomorfa holocrystalline texture is observed, consisting of twinned plagioclase, biotite, pyroxene and amphibole. The image was recorded at crossed nicols, with an increase of 5x10.

Concept and Development: Carolina Díaz / Memoria creativa

www.memoriacreativa.cl

Journalist: Consuelo Terra

Research and Production: Valentina Durruty

Editorial Design: Fernanda Ulloa

Infographics: www.graficainteractiva.cl

English version: Marcelo Arancibia Álvarez, Mining Engineer, Senior VP Maptek South America.

English proof-reading: José Miguel Trujillo D.

To Katrina, my lovely daughter.

To my wife Ketty for her unwavering support.

To my mother Rosa, for being as she is.

To all drillers for their effort and sacrifice.

Without them, there would not have been a rescue.

Walter

To Marcela, sister and friend. An almost perfect woman.

To María Isabel, the most beautiful girl in the world.

To three men who, for different reasons, I envy:

Felipe Ignacio, for his kindness and patience.

Nicolás, for his commitment and for running endless marathons.

Cristián, for being an untiring conqueror.

Felipe

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Through Edgar Basto, I would like to thank BHP Billiton and Minera Escondida for attending the call of solidarity and for their endeavour to assign all human and material resources necessary to assist the 33 Atacama miners. I was there, and I know that this contribution, together with all the others, was crucial. At the same time, my special acknowledgement goes out for the support provided to make this life story come true, which with every word herein is intended to convey an awareness of a great multidisciplinary human group, that through a profound sacrifice, and through exhausting working days, contributed to the San José rescue.

Walter Véliz Araya

Maybe one of the most difficult things to achieve in life is confidence. Thus, I would like to express my acknowledgement to Minera Escondida, not only for the confidence deposited on us to collaborate in writing these lines. I would like to publicly express thanks for their kindness for placing a huge amount of resources in our hands, without which it would have been impossible to find the 33 miners and bring them back to life.

Felipe Matthews Rojas

INDEX

Why I wrote this book: Walter Véliz Araya

Why I wrote this book: Felipe Matthews Rojas

Foreword by Francisco J. Ortiz

Part I: Prospecting of 33

The Great Landslide

Arrival of a Vallenar Geologist to San José

Desert Machinery

The Undesirable Deviation

Life at the Mine

Drill Hole of Hope

Part II: Extraction of the 33

The Geologists' Plan

Drill Hole 6C From the Inside

Stuck in the Middle of the Shaft

Borderline Decisions

The End of the Inferno

Visual Report

Annexes

WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK

Since we once more met at the San José mine platforms, after the August 5, 2010 landslide, Felipe and I became a team. We took on a role, for which we at times feared we were not prepared for. We grasped our heads in amazement when we saw the drill hole deflections. We solved problems that seemed not to have a solution, discussed them among ourselves and with the drill hole team members. We embraced each other and cried together. I recall never crying this way before, when we found out the 33 miners were alive and we looked forward to their rescue. We shared countless cold, tasteless meat and cheese sandwiches. We went through the same exhausting journeys: sleepless nights, standing on the platform, freezing in the cold desert nights. And, once the rescue was over, we wrote this book together.

It was Felipe’s idea, when we had not yet finished the drill hole process. I had no experience in writing this kind of text; my closest relationship with writing had to do with my undergraduate thesis required for the geological professional training and subsequent postgraduate course. Nevertheless, I became more enthusiastic while we were analyzing the details. Should we point to the technical matters and the work developed by the geologists? Should we focus on the human aspects of the story, of which there were surprisingly many? Should we write in first person singular? Should we narrate the ups and downs of the three rescue plans in detail?

The result of all these questions, with which we were deeply involved with for months are in this book, which we consciously decided to write using the third person singular, because neither Felipe nor I were the protagonists of this unbelievable story. The improvised team of people had to cope with drill holes and geology, and consolidated throughout the 69 days the miners spent underground. That anonymous human team was not featured in the news, nor included in the press releases. Nevertheless, without their sacrifice and dedication, the search and rescue mission would not have been successful.

Once things came to an end, it was easy to understand that my involvement at San José was my favorite topic of discussion. The experience we lived was so intense that everything else was disregarded, at least during the first few months after the rescue. While I talked with and listened to the people close to me, I was able to perceive and realize that the voluntary contribution of private companies was fully unknown; they provided economical, technological, and above all, human resources throughout the drilling process. All of them, without exception, had a common goal: finding the 33 miners. They went to great lengths to achieve this. It was amazing to see the fruitful results of a solid and disinterested conjunction between two different worlds: the private and the governmental spheres.

Likewise, I would like to take this opportunity to give my personal opinion on the success obtained during the first span, the one that got us involved in this situation. Three factors came together successfully: the proper drill planning in charge of the Minera Escondida team, the drilling path measurement cleanly achieved by the Geoatacama company with state-of-the-art technology which guaranteed a precise drilling location, and the contribution of the Maptek company professionals using the Vulcan software that provided the knowledge for the real 3D drill hole path.

If these three requirements had not been met, if only one of these procedures had failed, I am certain we would have written quite a different story.

During the second span, the so-called plan B, a 24-year-old youngster joined the consolidated team of geologists, and I would also like to say something about him. As he was to graduate from the engineering profession, he demonstrated how young people can undertake a commitment if they are provided with the opportunity and motivation. His imagination and creativity, added to his unflagging work capacity, made this rescue become a happy reality.

Personally, I have been dedicated to prospecting and drilling holes my whole life, most of it at Minera Escondida. For this purpose, I would like to express the other reason why I was encouraged to undertake this literary project: the possibility to show the importance of being a driller. At San José it was unmistakably demonstrated that in addition to being focused on mineral and hydric resources, a driller is capable of making enormous efforts and sacrifices whenever facing a noble objective. To be able to find the 33 miners trapped alive in an underground inferno was not a random event. Without the geologists, drillers and the support of state-of-the-art technology, it would not have been possible. I want everybody to know this, because I am proud of it. Deeply proud.

Walter Véliz Araya

WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK

When I was 14, I was a technical-professional student at the old mining school in Copiapó, and when approaching my major in technical mining, I entered a vertical-shaft mine for the first time in, I felt terribly scared. In spite of such an experience, I was still decided to achieve my childhood dream: to work in the mining industry.

The sojourn in Copiapó was the best foreword for what was to happen in my life. When I graduated from Geology at the Catholic University of the North, with the aim of expanding my knowledge, I started my pilgrimage to the mines in the Third Region, considered within the small-scale-mining segment. It was there I learned about chutes and draw points, shafts and stopes, inclined shafts, bridges and pillars, and mills and tailings. I learned that if something remained in the tail, it was because the sample was certainly over 4 grams per ton. It is there I also learned that there were such brave people on the hills as to tolerate hunger whenever there was a vein fatigue, or the leaching did not work out.

At that time I understood that it was a sort of mining philosophy: that anytime you went to town, you should live life to the fullest, because you never knew whether you would return safely from the hill. With the uncertainty and unsafe conditions you worked in (many of which are still the same), it was unlikely to get out alive from an underground gallery whose roof leaked, or escaping a shaft by mortising.

I was terribly scared more than once. I remember when I was inspecting the Vallerina mine, at the intersection of the northern route highway and the exit to Taltal. Together with my assistant Juan Pérez Paredes, a tremor took us by surprise, almost a major earthquake for those who were outside the mine, but for us, at the bridges, it was the greatest cataclysm in history.

I still feel the coming of a grizzy echoing in my ears at a mine near Carrera Pinto. A cursed misfortune caused the death of a miner and left another two injured. A cursed whaleback crushed a 22-year-old-boy, chairman of the management committee at the Buena Vista mine in Michilla.

So, when I found out what had happened at San José, and indeed with the living memory of the smells and the lack of air I had experienced at the Cachiyuyo mine north of Chañaral, I could relive the fearsome sensations felt at 700 meters depth. Even though I was far away from San José, I felt like I was there. I had always been there.

The day after my physical arrival to the mine, I told Walter Véliz that I thought it was necessary, no matter what the outcome might be, to write about this experience. That it was our obligation to write about the technical matters concerning what we were doing. And certainly (and I was not mistaken) about what was about to happen; many writers trying to tell our true story. Certainly (and again, I was not mistaken here), many of them would pride themselves on finding and rescuing the miners!

I was convinced we would find them and get them out of there. And it was us geologists who had the historical and moral responsibility of telling the truth.

Walter did not hesitate to accept the challenge. Agreeing to commit to tell the truth, whatever the outcome of our mission.

As days went by, I was able to observe human nature and realized how some people followed the TV cameras, the flashlights and photographers’ lenses, in pursuance of appropriating having achieved supposedly titanic tasks. Therefore I reaffirmed the need to write this story.

It was not because of economical, or showmanship-related interests. As I said to Walter from the beginning, we had to tell the truth: that this miracle had been possible thanks to drillers and geologists. The same drillers and geologists that find and generate resources from their (never acknowledged) work, allowing Chile to develop and bloom.

Is there any doubt that God and the Great Architect were both present at San José to let us worldly people understand that whenever you work in teams, miracles occur? That when black ideas mix with white ones, magical gray colours emerge?

Our writing does not integrate all the dense and technical legacy we picked up at San José; this, could maybe be for other long nights of work, but it contains the true facts and the acknowledgement owed to those who really mattered. The following names are worth mentioning here due to their deep concern and commitment: Miño, Sandra, Paola and Macarena, Castagno and Sprohnle, Lalo Hurtado, Igor and Mijali, Miguel Pérez, Kurt and James, Danko, José and Cristián and so many others that worked together to save the lives of human beings we had never met before and whom we are still are not acquainted with.

Felipe Matthews Rojas

FOREWORD

As an old mining civil engineer and mining geologist, and as someone acquainted with underground mines, either small or medium scale, I was deeply involved and anguished with the details of the San José mine landslide on Thursday, August 5, 2010 that trapped a group of 33 miners at a depth of 700 meters, a tragedy that captured worldwide attention. There were many reasons for it to capture this attention.

The magnitude of the tragedy could perfectly have taken away those hard workers’ lives; the personal awareness of the fright experienced being in a mine underground when a vigorous and long shake occurs, as it happened while I was drawing a topographic-geological map at Punta de Cobre (Copiapó) producing a lot of dust and falling rocks, besides that loud noise that seemed to be everywhere, with nowhere to be safe. Similarly, or even more anguished was I after a partial landslide at Inca del Oro originated by another telluric shake, at the entry of the old abandoned underground Manto Cuba mine where I was also drawing a geological map. Close to the San Pedro de Cachiyuyo mine, there was a misfortune due to the over exploitation.

Because I was assigned a detailed geological study of the San José mine in Copiapó, commissioned by the Sali Hochschild mining company just after having graduated five decades ago. At that time S. Hochschild considered the possibility of renting the mine. Even though the mine was only 300 meters deep, it already had immense and gloomy stopes opened towards the strong San José vein. I particularly disliked this mine because when still a student, a miner died falling into a flooded internal vertical shaft and was trapped at the bottom by timber and waste. As the rescue was unsuccessful, the Hochschild company hired new scuba divers in Santiago in order to recuperate the miner’s body. Divers were scarce and not well known at that time, and as I had set up my tent in the wilderness of the northern desert, close to the mine entry, I dreamed with the unfortunate miner returned from the netherworld to take me to the bottom of the fatal vertical shaft; finally, my curiosity to learn how the problem of making drill holes with reverse-air that progress breaking the rock could be solved, inclined and big in length, easy to deflect from its original path while trying to impact the small area, located 700 meters deep, where it was likely to find the trapped miners. In this regard, and as an example, my experience by the early 60’s when I was in charge of the explorations with deep diamond drill holes at the iron deposit in Boquerón-Chañar (Vallenar), I realized that the inclined and long drill holes tended to deviate from their path for reasons mainly attributable to geological factors. In fact, on that pioneering exploration project into a deep deposit in Chile, a diamond drill hole 1,000 meters long, inclined and guided north, went through an unusual deflection, less than 200 meters east, and at the same time something similar occurred with the parallel drilling of the same length, which also deflected 200 meters, but to the West. Even a vertical 1,000-meter long drill hole did not follow the straight line it was expected to, but its path acted as a real hanging curl, which deviated many meters from its final destiny.

While I was carefully following the rescue operations, I suddenly recalled my long forgotten old reports and detailed geological, underground and surface maps of San José. Maybe they could have been useful to at least know that the host rock of the mineralized veins was not uniform, as it was assumed at the beginning of the rescue, as it is concluded the end of this story. But unfortunately, the sledge report was lost in the total darkness of geological time.

So I continued, like any other person, paying maximum attention to the daily events at San José according to the news broadcasts. My favourite source of information was the La prueba de ADN radio program from journalist Fernando Paulsen, whom I admired for his perspicuity to explain profound technical matters during the operation, particularly those related to drilling on rescue shafts. Like everybody else, I was happy when one fine day, Fernando was the first to broadcast the happy news by radio, saying that a drill hole had reached the 33 miners and that they were at the refuge alive and safe.

Later on, after the miners were successfully rescued, producing worldwide expectation and applause, I always listened to Paulsen’s program, something that particularly called my attention was his interview with geologist Felipe Matthews, founder of the Geoatacama geological services company, who mentioned his own and relevant participation in the rescue and emphasized the essential role performed by two young (compared to me) geologists of the Minera Escondida company: Walter Véliz, geology manager, and Nicolás Cruz, an expert who, with the support of engineer Marcos Bermudez, had a crucial participation in planning and technically managing and performing drill holes at San José, three of which were able to reach the trapped miners. Curiously, I did not hear their names in the media during the long lasting 69 days of the rescue, and I was enthusiastically cheered when I confirmed they were geologist professionals I knew very well, who had become so important for this happy outcome. That is why, on that same day, I sent them e-mails to congratulate them for this tremendous success.

Therefore I did not hesitate to happily accept the recent invitation of the authors to read this interesting story and write this foreword accordingly, and from an outside view, narrate the rescue episodes and operations themselves. Even if one knows about the events’ progress and happy ending, when reading the book, I was surprised to find its passionate and instructional narration, profuse and clearly illustrated, in which so many ins and outs are described, concerning the hard and exhausting journeys of skillful professionals: geologists, mine engineers, computer specialists, drill hole experts, experienced on field, all of them with the valuable support of skilled workers of different trades, working together without collapsing until the set goal was met.

The book answers my original guess-works and provides the reader with a new and unknown background, as to how the goal was reached, describing the technical-geological matters taken into account, and likewise, the cutting edge computer technologies used to monitor the drill hole step by step, the aim of which was to reach the miners. In brief, it is a timetable which from the beginning shows the numerous technical and few organizational difficulties that the geologists faced in order to overcome the problems which were not related with finding of a huge mineral deposit, which is the golden dream and aim of the exploration geoscientist miner, but to reach an even bigger treasure: saving the lives of 33 miners trapped hundreds of meters under the ground.

I was thoroughly interested from the beginning of the story, that starts describing the arrival of a huge amount of personnel and machinery from Minera Escondida to San José, only three days after the unfortunate accident occurred. Walter Véliz, geology manager, at first realized that a vertical drill hole, the quickest way to reach the miners, would be difficult due to the adverse topographic conditions of the soil and the mine’s interior. Hence, the only solution was to continue inclining the drill hole. Therefore, he deemed it necessary to warn the authorities that deflected drill holes, especially the ones drilled with the reverse-air system, tend to deviate because rotation is clockwise and the drilling bars drive them away from the previously defined direction. And since the range of error was 5%, whenever the drill holes at San José reached the depth of 700 meters, the deflection was of 35 meters away from the miners. Permissible for geological exploration purposes, but inadmissible for saving human lives.

Considering the geological features at the San José mine, as I still recall from my survey years ago, it was possible to foresee that drill hole operations would be faced with countless troubles: powerful copper lens veins and calcite gangue gold, all of them located in zones with geological faults with minor gaps in voltage, fracture systems, gross greyish green reeves and fine grain fitted into granite rock, rich in strong quartz, etc. Needless to say that, as the old underground mine it was, it was likely that some of the drill holes might reach previous and unknown mine works, not registered in maps. The same thing happened to me in the 70’s in Punta del Cobre, using drill holes for exploration undertaken for promotion management office of the national mining, company.

In order to monitor and trying to control drill hole deflection, Véliz even let minister Golborne himself know about the need to constantly measure the paths to be drilled by the Geo-Operaciones, Terraservice, Major Drilling Chile, Geotec Boyles Bros, Adviser Drilling and Boart Longyear companies, no matter if this meant that the rescue operations might be delayed. This was a good precaution, because if any drill hole deviated, there was no choice other than stopping, replacing the machine and starting a new one.

I thought this procedure was well conceived, as opposed to trying to correct the pit paths by means of wedges, as other company managers suggested. The introduction of long deflection wedges to cause the guided deflection of the borehole is a complex specialized operation, and above all a slow one, not recommended in this case where time commanded. During the first explorations at Boquerón-Chañar, I had the opportunity to experiment with this rather primitive guided boring technique when a tool we did not want to lose was trapped in a deep shaft. So it was necessary to partially put cement it and placing a guided wedge and drill, with a smaller diameter, a shaft span, thus separating it from the trapping region. It is not difficult to suppose how long this singular operation took!

I always thought that the mining sector in our country was quite small, that we all knew each other and somehow were in touch directly or indirectly. But this story has shown me how mistaken I was. Because, for example, there were two geologists, colleagues and friends since their studies at the Catholic University of the North, even sharing boarding facilities in Antofagasta, who, without being aware had a common desire motivated by this San José accident. As a matter of fact, at the beginning of the rescue operation, one of them, Walter Véliz, was exasperated because he knew of a fully trustworthy measurement method for the drill hole path; while the other, Felipe Matthews, not far from there, was angry because he was not considered in order to use his state-of-the-art gyroscope, a quite accurate instrument to partially lift the same drill holes. Unbelievable but true, these two friends did not know how much they needed each other in those critical days, in which everybody’s goal was to try to find the 33 miners alive.

Curiously, when reading about Felipe’s gyroscopes, I notice how quickly years went by, because by the end of the 60’s, being a student at the Colorado School of Mines, I had the opportunity to attend an interesting conference by a South African engineer, who explained the gyroscopic effect in mining engineer and gave the example of the shift of the geographic north towards the inside of the South African gold mines –that in those years were already 2,000 meters deep– by means of a gyroscopic compass. This new system allowed easily correlating underground tasks with the surface, replacing the old and complicated plumbing the vertical shafts technique. And now, more than four decades later, there comes Felipe at San José doing his best with this gyroscope searching for the geographic north, an accurate, delicate and expensive cutting edge tool which is used to measure the shafts’ course. How could I not realize how much time has passed since that conference, at that time novel to me, specially because I was particularly aware of the setbacks of plumbing vertical shafts for a topographic and geologic survey I had carried out at average-scale mines in the Atacama region!

Likewise, it was essential for geologists to ask for the support of state-of-the-art technology to visualize the drill hole course in regard to the position of inner tasks and the surface topography in 3D, essential to step by step, and in real time, monitor what really happened at the San José shafts. The expertise in managing the Vulcan mining software, the engineers, geologists, and the Maptek land surveyors were crucial. Maptek is a company which is not only up to date technologically, but also incorporates the valuable contribution of women to mining activities, particularly the participation of the experienced Sandra Jara, who besides her professionalism, was able to convey her full trust to the group, assuring them that the 33 miners would be rescued. I recall the old times when seeing a woman on field, or inside a mine was as unbelievable as having the Vulcan technology nowadays. Even to achieve 3D drill hole visualization, we used to rely on the slow assembly of arduous scale miniature models, neatly made in wood, glass and wire, that could easily reach 1 meter in volume, and then were ready to interpret the geology of the mineral deposit and plan new drill holes.

A 3D visualization of the first borings at the San José mine ratified what was foreseen: they failed when deflecting. Nevertheless, geologists, with their profound sense of observation were able to compile valuable geologic, hydrographic and operational information on drill holes, which was essential to plan the direction and deflection with which shafts should be bored, thus increasing the likelihood of reaching the goal. Correcting deflection was not easy because even well known directional engines from Australia and the United States for this purpose were not enough to assist the anxiously awaited aid, since from the beginning the engines went through serious technical problems without solution. In spite of representing a breakthrough in technology and possessing the quality of being highly sophisticated tools, they could not cope with the toughness and fine texture that characterizes certain rocky levels at San José.

The team of geologists at San José faced the greatest challenge