RESPEC provides comprehensive engineering services
for surface subsidence.
Sinkhole Formed Over
a Salt Mine in New York
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Benchmark and subsidence network design and installation
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Reference benchmark identification, including Global Positioning Satellite
(GPS) surveys
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Level-survey specification, contracting, and oversight
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Subsidence interpretation, analysis, and reporting
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Expert testimony
Our subsidence-monitoring and analysis approach can be formulated to
address specific ground-movement problems or to fulfill general regulatory
needs. Our salt-mechanics expertise is especially useful in understanding the
time-dependent subsidence over salt and potash facilities.
Installation of Subsidence
Benchmarks in Texas
RESPEC has designed monitoring systems and analyzed subsidence over both dry-
and solution-mined excavations in bedded and domal salts and potash deposits.
Historically, subsidence data were often merely reported to regulatory
agencies. We now use numerical modeling tools and the measured subsidence to
monitor mine stability and cavern behavior. Stability interpretations based on
subsidence measurements have been used in civil court cases and in testimony
before regulatory agencies. We were responsible for monthly reports on
dissolution-induced subsidence over the Retsof (New York) salt mine as it
filled with fresh water, and presented the local community and regulators with
a definitive interpretation of the ultimate subsidence for the mine. We
pioneered the use of the GPS to establish reference benchmark elevations
for subsidence surveys over salt domes.
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