REVEAL™

for Caving

4D monitoring of the cave back, muck pile, air gap, and surrounding rock to support operational performance and safety.

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Understand full cave behaviour to inform cave management strategy with increased confidence.

Identify early indicators of geotechnical instability, proactively mitigating risks to safety.

Dynamically manage draw control to maintain cave balance and production forecasting.

Create visibility. Drive productivity. Safer.

Upcoming workshop

August 14, 2026 / Ulaanbataar, Mongolia

Unprecedented Subsurface Visibility for Safer, Smarter Cave Mining Using Muon Tomography

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  • “We’re getting actionable data that directly informs our cave management and life-of-mine plans. We’re no longer debating the cave’s shape and location, if it’s a conservative or optimistic projection, and if we could be wrong.
    Having a complete cave shape that we have confidence in takes us a big step forward towards our forecasting expectations.”
    Sarah Webster
    Senior Geotechnical Engineer – Caving

Case studies in caving

High-resolution insights reduce uncertainty and enhance understanding of cave shape and behaviour.
In the caving method, mining involves breaking most or all of the ore body. Block caving, in particular, is a method of mining large, lower-grade mineral deposits that can achieve results at one-tenth of the cost and environmental impact than conventional mining methods, while delivering high daily production rates and yielding reductions in surface waste and environmental impact. The process involves undermining an ore body and then allowing it to collapse under its own weight. The benefits of block caving include lower cost, high daily production rates with no backfilling costs, and large reduction in surface waste and environmental impact. The drawbacks include stalling of progressive caving, blockages, reliably predicting orebody cave-ability, understanding cave propagation, and managing ore flow. Ideon can contribute to successful block-caving by remotely monitoring the progression of the cave propagation to support operational performance and safety as well as reducing geological uncertainty in understanding the rock volume surrounding the cave.  

Geological uncertainty increases risk, prevents access, forces delays.
Due to the nature of the method, once a block cave is initially developed (through drilling in underground tunnels) it propagates upwards in a largely uncontrolled process, and it is not possible to directly observe the void as it evolves over time. Mining companies constantly evaluate and monitor cave propagation, and mitigate geotechnical hazards during the deposit investigation, mine design and planning, and operational stages of the caving process. Current methods offer point measurements only, leaving operators to interpolate what may be happening between discrete points inside the cave. They cannot confidently or accurately delineate the ever-changing parameters of the cave edges, the growing air gap created, and the muck pile forming at the cave bottom. This uncertainty impedes growth and slows time to market. With no way to address it, mining companies have accepted immense business risk to get critical metals to market quickly. 

Ideon reduces geological uncertainty, giving you confidence to unlock resources with less risk.

Ideon REVEAL™ for Caving is a remote, high-resolution 4D subsurface intelligence solution that provides full imaging of the cave back, muck pile, and air gaps on a regular cadence. It comprises proprietary hardware (that delivers a new-to-the-world data source) ruggedized for the most demanding of noisy in-mine environments, software, integrated imaging systems, and advanced data analysis and interpretation.

We also offer patented multi-sensor fusion capabilities enable seamless data collection and integration from our proprietary sensors and third-party data. AI-powered workflow transforms the geological model into a high-resolution dynamic Earth model to inform ongoing operations. 

Gain an unmatched understanding of cave behaviour, unlocking economic value across your operations, safely:

Leveraging instruments positioned in-mine, under or around the caving zone, directly image the entire surface of the block cave, as well as the top of the muck pile, with quantified uncertainty throughout. No more subjective interpolation across random data points, as you’ll have a much more accurate cave model.

Remotely monitor the progression of the cave propagation to support operational performance and safety as well as increased geological understanding of the rock volume surrounding the block cave.

Update your cave model on a frequency appropriate to an operational cadence (typically every 30 days), allowing for rapid and agile decision-making about next steps in production. Spend your valuable time and effort on getting product to market safely and quickly.

See how Evolution Mining leveraged REVEAL™ for Caving

High-resolution imaging of the cave back, muck pile, and adjacent geological structures, with monthly monitoring updates.

Case study