Geomechanics specialist

Mandatory requirements (education, experience, technical knowledge, etc.):

• Bachelors degree in Civil Engineering, Mining Engineering, Geology, or Geological Engineering;
• Fluent English;
• Advanced knowledge in geomechanics applied to subsidence and progressive collapse;
• Knowledge of geotechnical instrumentation and continuous monitoring systems;
• Proficiency in geotechnical modeling software: Itasca (FLAC3D, 3DEC); Rocscience (RS3); Massflow; Abaqus (desirable);
• Proven experience in underground mining with caving methods;
• Experience in advanced project studies (pre-feasibility, feasibility, and detailed engineering);
• Experience in operations or projects related to caving;

It will be considered an asset:

• Experience in underground construction;
• Experience in the Sublevel Caving method;
• Advanced Spanish;
  • Assess stability of production, infrastructure and access excavations, explicitly accounting for SLC extraction, draw control and induced stress/strain from cave propagation;
  • Perform rock mass classification (RMR, Q, GSI) with SLC-specific inputs (joint persistence, caveability indices, fragmentation) and maintain geotechnical domains;
  • Monitor the evolution of the caving front and subsidence influence zones;
  • Develop and maintain TARP/trigger levels for convergence, seismicity and subsidence;
  • Issue geotechnical hazard maps and action plans;
  • Design/review primary and secondary ground support: bolts, cable bolts, mesh, shotcrete (steel/fibre-reinforced), spiles/forepoles, straps, lattice girders;
  • Define installation QA/QC and acceptance criteria;
  • Plan and supervise instrumentation (MPBX/extensometers, prisometers, stress cells, piezos, microseismic, radar/laser convergence);
  • Analyze trends and issue recommendations to Operations and Mine Planning;
  • Provide technical geomechanics recommendations to planning and operations teams, considering stability limits, mining sequencing, and dilution control;
  • Lead trade-off evaluations (support options, excavation shapes, sequencing, development vs. production interactions) including schedule/cost/risk impacts, and document decisions;
  • Provide ground control guidance to daily/weekly planning (rehabilitation standards, ground support patterns, barricading/zoning);
  • Build and interpret 3D numerical models to forecast stresses, displacements and potential failure modes across mining phases; calibrate models with monitoring data. (Rocscience, Itasca, among others);
  • Prepare technical reports, memos and dashboards (KPIs, compliance to design, condition ratings), and present findings to management;
  • Set up constitutive models, boundary conditions, and run sensitivity analyses;
  • Ground support & fortification: design bases, mix designs for shotcrete (steel/fibre), bolt/cable selection, pull-testing, pattern optimization, durability/corrosion, installation QA/QC;
  • Monitoring & data: configuration and interpretation of microseismic, displacement and stress datasets; integration with mine databases (e.g., Deswik/Leapfrog outputs);
  • Reporting & trade-offs;
  • Ability to perform ground control duties as the owners counterpart, both in the field during construction and in the office reviewing engineering deliverables;
  • Ground control experience as an owners representative, covering site execution and office review of engineering deliverables;
  • Collaborate closely with Safety, Geology, Planning, and Operations departments;