A quarry face inspection checklist is a structured check of a working face, the benches and crest above it and the area at its toe, done before people and plant work there, so that loose rock, cracking, undercutting and water are found and dealt with before they fall on someone. The full checklist is on this page, grouped by section, with what good looks like and the point at which you stop work and escalate.
This guide covers what the law requires in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia, what to look at and why, the complete checklist, and how face inspections fail in practice.
Why the working face needs its own inspection
A quarry face is not a static structure. Quarry face stability changes with every blast, every bucket and every storm, so the face the day shift left is not the face the night shift finds.
Most face incidents are not large slope collapses. They are single blocks, slabs and overhangs: a rock that lets go above an excavator, an undercut toe that drops a ledge, a crack behind the crest nobody on the floor could see. A face inspection is built to look for these, in order, every time.
What the law requires in each state
No state prescribes a quarry face inspection form. Each requires ground failure to be controlled and workplaces to be inspected regularly, and leaves the detail to your risk assessment.
Queensland
Quarries in Queensland sit under the Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Regulation 2017. Three sections carry the weight for a face inspection:
- Section 43 (Excavations) requires the site senior executive to provide appropriate facilities, such as a fence, barricade, bund wall or signage, to minimise the risk of people falling into an excavation. The definition of excavation expressly includes a mine or quarry face and a pit.
- Section 44 (Ground control) requires anyone with a ground control obligation to take measures to prevent or control local and area failures in ground integrity, having regard to matters including water and drainage and the monitoring of excavations. The measures must include minimising blast damage at the excavation perimeter and appropriate equipment and procedures for scaling.
- Section 95A, inserted in 2024, makes it a supervisor’s responsibility to carry out workplace inspections as required under the safety and health management system, and to record the reports, findings and recommendations in the mine record.
If your system says the supervisor inspects the face each shift, section 95A puts those findings in the mine record. For the wider Queensland picture, see our guide to quarry safety obligations in Queensland.
New South Wales
Quarries are mines under the Work Health and Safety (Mines and Petroleum Sites) Regulation 2022. Section 4 names ground or strata failure as a principal hazard, and Schedule 1 requires the principal hazard management plan to consider slope stability, blasting, scaling and the monitoring of excavations. Section 39 requires the operator to arrange regular inspection of the working environment, taking into account the procedures, timing and competent persons, with a risk assessment of all areas of the mine. Tier-3 quarries are exempt from the principal hazard management plan provisions under section 178, but their safety management system must still set out the controls for ground or strata failure, and section 39 still applies.
The Resources Regulator’s Health and safety at quarries good practice guidelines are the most practical source for what a face inspection should look at. They say faces should not exceed the reach of the excavator, should be regularly scaled and should not be undermined. They call for a geotechnical assessment where any individual face is more than 15 m high or the excavation is more than 30 m deep, and stress frequent inspection of crests above active work, especially during heavy rain and after large blasts. The guidelines date from November 2018 and cite the previous regulation, so use them for practice, not clause references. More on the NSW framework is in quarry safety in NSW.
Western Australia
Quarrying is a mining operation under the Work Health and Safety (Mines) Regulations 2022. Regulation 631C requires the mine operator to manage the risks of quarry operations, including demarcation of the edges of geotechnical structures and protection against people and equipment falling. Regulation 631B covers instability of geotechnical structures and lists their inspection and monitoring as a relevant matter. Where geotechnical structure instability has the potential for multiple deaths it is a principal mining hazard under regulation 612, and Schedule 19 then requires the hazard plan to consider water, blasting effects, scaling equipment and how geotechnical structures are inspected and corrected.
Regulation 634A requires regular workplace inspections, based on a risk assessment and carried out by the statutory supervisor for the place or another competent person. WorkSafe WA publishes mining self-assessments, including quarry systems and open pit geotechnical audits. See also quarry safety in Western Australia.
For how the face inspection sits alongside every other statutory and operational inspection, see our guide to mine site inspections in Australia.
What a good quarry face inspection looks at
The face against the plan. Start with the excavation rules for the area: design face height, face angle, bench width and the reach of the machine working it. A face taller than the excavator can reach cannot be scaled from the floor. The quarry bench inspection belongs on the same walk: a bench narrower than design has lost its catch capacity. Undercutting at the toe is a common departure, because it happens a bucket at a time.
Loose rock and blast damage. Look for blocks and slabs defined by open joints, overhangs, and fresh rock on the floor or benches. After a blast, compare the dug face with the design toe and crest and note crest loss or back break.
The crest, water and weather. Tension cracks behind the crest are an obvious early warning and cannot be seen from the floor, so the crest is viewed from safe access and known cracks are marked at their ends. New seepage, ponding and water running into cracks all reduce stability, and heavy rain or a large blast should trigger a fresh inspection before work resumes. Our article on quarry water management covers the drainage side.
People and plant. The NSW guidelines call for mobile plant to work perpendicular to the face while in the impact zone, with a buffer such as a rock platform and rock trap between the loading machine and the toe. Nobody on foot belongs between the face and the machine.
The complete quarry face inspection checklist
Use one checklist per face, per inspection. Any answer in the “Escalate if” column stops work at the face until a competent person has assessed it and the control is recorded. Set the triggers from your own geotechnical assessment.
Section A: Before you approach
| Check | What good looks like | Escalate if |
|---|---|---|
| Weather since last inspection | No heavy rain, storm or long wet spell | Heavy rain or storm since the last inspection and no re-inspection yet |
| Blasting since last inspection | No blast, or post-blast inspection done and signed off | Face exposed by a blast has not had a post-blast inspection |
| Open hazards and handover notes | Previous findings read, open items known | An open face hazard has no current control or owner |
| Safe access to crest and toe | Defined route to a safe viewing point for both | Crest cannot be inspected from safe access |
Section B: Face geometry against plan
| Check | What good looks like | Escalate if |
|---|---|---|
| Face height | Within design and within reach of the machine working it | Face taller than design or beyond excavator reach |
| Face angle | At or flatter than design | Oversteepened or overhanging section |
| Toe | Clean, at design line, not undercut | Toe undermined or dug behind the face line |
| Bench width | At design width, catch capacity clear | Bench narrowed, lost or full of spill |
Section C: Face condition
| Check | What good looks like | Escalate if |
|---|---|---|
| Loose rock | Face scaled, no loose blocks or slabs | Loose material above a work area that cannot be scaled now |
| Overhangs | None | Any overhang above or near people or plant |
| Open joints and wedges | Joints tight, no blocks defined by open structure | Joints opening or a block visibly defined and unsupported |
| Blast damage | Design toe and crest achieved, little or no back break | Crest loss, shattered face or blocks rotated |
| Fresh rockfall | No new rock on benches or floor | New rock at the toe or on benches since last inspection |
| Weathered or weak zones | Known zones mapped and stable | New ravelling, slumping or softening |
Section D: Crest and area behind
| Check | What good looks like | Escalate if |
|---|---|---|
| Tension cracks | None, or known cracks marked and unchanged | New crack, or a marked crack longer, wider or offset |
| Crest edge | Intact, clear of loose material | Crest breaking back or loose rock on the edge |
| Loads near the crest | Stockpiles, plant and roads at approved standoff | Load or traffic closer to the crest than approved |
| Edge protection | Windrow or barrier continuous at required height | Gap, damage or missing section |
| Monitoring, where installed | No movement trend | Movement trend or alarm threshold reached |
Section E: Water
| Check | What good looks like | Escalate if |
|---|---|---|
| Seepage from the face | None, or known and unchanged | New seepage, or flow increased or muddy |
| Ponding on benches or crest | Benches and crest drain away from the face | Water ponding against the crest or entering cracks |
| Drains and bunds | Clear and diverting water away from the face | Blocked, breached or eroded |
| Floor at the toe | Firm and trafficable | Soft, boggy or undercut by water |
Section F: Exclusion zones, plant and people
| Check | What good looks like | Escalate if |
|---|---|---|
| Exclusion zone at the toe | Marked, understood and respected | People or light vehicles inside the zone |
| Inactive faces | Toe barricaded, bunded or signed | Open access below an inactive face |
| Plant position | Working facing the face, buffer or rock trap in place | Plant side-on in the impact zone, or no buffer |
| People on foot | Nobody between the face and plant | Anyone on foot at the toe of an active face |
| Scaling | Right machine and method for the height | Scaling needed beyond the reach of the available plant |
Section G: Record and sign-off
| Check | What good looks like | Escalate if |
|---|---|---|
| Photos | Photo for every non-conforming answer | Non-conformance recorded without evidence |
| Controls | Every finding has a control, owner and due time | Finding left with no action |
| Area status | Face stated as open, restricted or closed | Status unclear to the next shift |
| Sign-off | Inspector signs, manager countersigns escalations | Escalated finding not seen by the quarry manager |
Where face inspections go wrong
- The crest is never walked. The face is viewed from the floor, the box is ticked, and the cracks behind the crest go unseen.
- Tick boxes without triggers. “Face OK: yes” records an opinion. Without an escalation point, two supervisors make two different calls on the same crack.
- No re-inspection after rain or a blast. The routine schedule wins over the event that changed the face.
- The form stops at the ute. The quarry manager learns about the crack after the face has moved.
- A generic checklist. A general form has one line for ground conditions. As we argue in why general checklists create a false sense of safety, that line is where the real hazard hides.
High, multi-bench walls need the fuller highwall inspection checklist. NSW operators should also see the NSW quarry pit inspection checklist.
Making the face inspection a decision, not a form
The real problem is rarely the question list. The face changes shift to shift while the inspection sits on paper in one supervisor’s vehicle, so nobody else can see which crack was marked or which face was restricted.
HazView puts the face inspection on the site map everyone uses. The checklist can be pinned to the face or attached to the face hazard, so each inspection builds that face’s history. A non-conforming answer opens an escalation section asking for a photo, the control and the area status, and the checklist can require a countersignature by role, such as the quarry manager. It works offline at the bottom of the pit and syncs when back in reception, and a PDF record can be emailed on submit. Your existing form is converted like for like first, and it stays private inside your own deployment. See how it works for quarry and mine managers, read about a purpose-built quarry inspection app, or book a demo to run a face inspection on your own map.
Related guides
- Mine Site Inspections in Australia: What the Law Requires, What to Check and What a Defensible Record Looks Like
- NSW Mine Workplace Inspection Requirements Explained
- NSW Quarry Pit Inspections: A Practical Checklist
- Pre-start Inspection Requirements on Australian Mine Sites
- All Inspections & Checklists guides
Frequently asked questions
How often should a quarry face be inspected?
None of the three state regulations sets one frequency for quarry faces. The timing comes from your risk assessment and safety management system. A common arrangement is a working face inspection each shift, plus a trigger inspection after heavy rain, a blast or any rockfall.
Who is allowed to do a face inspection?
A competent person as defined by your system. In Queensland, workplace inspections are a supervisor’s responsibility under section 95A. In Western Australia, regulation 634A assigns them to the statutory supervisor or another competent person. In NSW, the operator’s arrangements must specify who is competent.
Do I need a geotechnical engineer?
Not for routine inspections, but your triggers should come from a geotechnical assessment. The NSW quarries guidelines call for a geotechnical assessment where any individual face exceeds 15 m, where the excavation is deeper than 30 m, or where fractured rock or disturbed geological structure makes the operation complex.
What should I do if I find a crack behind the crest?
Stop work below it, restrict the area, mark and photograph the crack ends, divert surface water away from it and escalate to the quarry manager or geotechnical adviser. Record its location precisely so the next inspection can tell whether it has grown.
Is there a mandatory quarry face inspection form?
No. Queensland, NSW and WA require ground failure to be controlled and workplaces inspected, but none prescribes a form. Start from the checklist above and tailor the triggers to your own faces.