This report is a guidebook of a tour of the Highvale mine for the 1985 CIM-CSPG conference. The guidebook lists six stops:
1. Reclamation pit 01
2. Pit 02
3. Mine north of pit B
4. High wall failure east end pit 03
5. Dragline
6. Pit A
The document also provides a geological interpretation of the mine and the failures in some of the pits. Highvale mine is 70 km west of Edmonton near the south shore of Lake Wabamun. Access is westward from Edmonton on Highway 16 and southward via a provincial road east of Lake Wabamun. Geological investigations were conducted in pits 02, 03 and 04.
The bedrock overburden in many places in the Plains of Western Canada has been thrust by Pleistocene glaciers. Regional surficial mapping of the Wabamun map area revealed that much of the bedrock in the Lake Isle-Wabamun-Saskatchewan River area had been glacially disturbed and deformed. The deformed bedrock material is weaker than the undeformed bedrock. As a result, high walls cut into this sediment have greater tendency to fail than those cut into undisturbed bedrock. Foreknowledge of the location, structure, dimensions and hydrology of these glacially thrust masses is of value in mine planning management.
Fenton, M.M., Langenberg, C.W., Jones, J.F., Trudell, M.R., Pawlowicz, J.G., Tapics, J.A. and Nikols, D.J. (1985): Tour of the Highvale open pit coal mine June 2, 1985 CIM-CSPG conference; Alberta Research Council, ARC/AGS Open File Report 1985-07, 60 p.