Recognised Standard 10 governs mine surveying and drafting at Queensland coal mines. It is to be followed by all mine surveyors and used for the control of surveying and mapping on site. Its centre of gravity is the Mine Workings Plan, a statutory document required under section 67 of the Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999, kept at the mine with a copy supplied to the Chief Inspector annually.
Most people on an open cut never open RS10, and most people on an open cut rely on its outputs every day. This guide covers what the standard requires of survey control and plan accuracy, the rule about old workings that everyone should know, and why the accuracy of a plan is a safety obligation rather than a technical preference.
The Mine Workings Plan
The Mine Workings Plan shows accurately the position of the mine workings. It has a specific legal life of its own.
- It is required to be kept at the mine, with a copy supplied to the Chief Inspector annually under section 67 of the Act.
- It must be prepared by or under the supervision of the mine surveyor.
- It must be prepared within three months of the opening of the mine, or such other time as the Chief Inspector directs in writing.
- It is produced in digital form and in hard copy for presentation.
The mine surveyor is a registered surveyor with the Surveyors Board of Queensland. This is a statutory appointment with personal professional standing behind it, and RS10 addresses the liability of the mine surveyor directly.
Survey control, and why the datum matters
All mine surveys and plans originate from the mine control network. The Mine Workings Plan is referenced to the Map Grid of Australia 1994, based on Geocentric Datum of Australia 1994 values, and the relationship between the mine grid system and GDA94 has to be shown on the plan itself. A datum station is established near the mine for mine surveys, referenced to GDA94 and to the Australian Height Datum.
Connection of the mine control network to the state grid should be to Class B standards of accuracy as defined in ICSM SP1. Levelling on the mine site is propagated from a benchmark assigned an AHD reduced level, surveyed to Class LD spirit levelling or Class B by trigonometric methods.
The reason this matters beyond the survey office is that everything else on the mine inherits it. Pit designs, dump designs, road alignments, geotechnical monitoring positions, tenement boundaries and every hazard anyone drops on a map are positioned relative to that control. A mine grid that is not properly related to GDA94, or a site where two grids are quietly in use, produces the kind of error that is invisible until two datasets are overlaid and disagree by metres.
Old workings: assume water until proven otherwise
RS10 contains a rule that deserves to be more widely known than it is. All mine plans used in compiling the Mine Workings Plan should be regarded with suspicion until their accuracy has been verified, and every effort should be made to obtain all existing information about the extent and location of old workings.
Then the operative part: where old workings exist that may constitute a danger, it shall be assumed, for the purpose of marking the Mine Workings Plan, that the workings contain water or fill, until the contrary is proven.
That is a default assumption of the worst credible case, written into a surveying standard. It exists because historical workings have killed people through inrush, and because the plans that describe them were drawn to standards nobody can now audit. Anyone planning to mine near old workings should treat that clause as the starting position, and the inrush thinking that follows from it is covered in water management, dewatering and inrush.
When accuracy is not practical
RS10 acknowledges that a plan cannot always show everything to the required accuracy, and it handles that honestly rather than pretending otherwise.
If it is not practical for a Mine Workings Plan to show accurately the details required under the Act, the site senior executive must ensure the parts of the plan containing detail whose accuracy is not practical are clearly marked. In addition, the SSE must ensure the information on the plan is sufficiently accurate to achieve an acceptable level of risk for operations at the mine.
Two things are notable. The obligation lands on the site senior executive, not only on the surveyor, which makes plan accuracy a safety management question rather than a technical one. And the test is the same test that runs through the whole Act: sufficient accuracy to achieve an acceptable level of risk. A plan can be imprecise, provided the imprecision is marked and the risk that flows from it is acceptable and understood.
An unmarked area of uncertainty is the dangerous case, because it looks exactly like a surveyed one.
Symbols, layers and the other plans
RS10 specifies symbols and sign conventions, referencing the Australian Standards for mine plan preparation and symbols and for the graphic representation of coal seams and associated strata. It also sets out themes and layers separately for open cut and underground mines, and covers additional plans, endorsement, certification and certification history, old workings and surveys, closing plans, and the cessation of the mine surveyor’s duties.
The standardisation is not bureaucratic tidiness. Mine plans outlive the people who drew them and are read by people who did not draw them, sometimes decades later and often in an emergency. A consistent symbol set is what makes that possible, and it is the same reason the old workings clause exists.
Where sites come unstuck
- Two grids in circulation. A legacy mine grid and a GDA94 dataset both in use, with no documented relationship, and nobody sure which one a given file is in.
- Areas of uncertainty not marked. The plan draws a confident line where the underlying data was a scanned drawing from 1974.
- Old workings treated as empty because nothing is drawn. The absence of information is not evidence of absence, and the standard says to assume water or fill.
- Operational data drifting off the survey control. Hazards, inspections and geotechnical observations captured on devices with consumer grade positioning, then compared to survey data as if the two were equivalent.
- The annual submission handled as a compliance task. The plan goes to the Chief Inspector and the same currency is not maintained for the plans people actually use in the pit.
- Plan currency assumed. The digital plan is authoritative, it was updated last quarter, and three benches have moved since.
Keeping the operational picture on the same ground as the survey
RS10 governs the survey record. The gap it does not address, because it is not its job, is the distance between the surveyed plan and the day to day operational picture: where the hazards are, which berm was inspected, where the crack in the highwall was last month, which road section is closed today.
HazView sits in that gap. Survey and design data comes in as map layers, so the operational record is drawn on the same ground as the survey rather than on a sketch. Hazards, inspections and geotechnical observations are located against that base and keep their position, their photographs, their time and the person who recorded them, permanently. A crack recorded in March can be found again in September and compared, because it has coordinates rather than a description.
Layers are refreshed as the mine moves, and the REST API means that happens from the systems the survey team already runs instead of by manual export and import. It also means the operational observations can be pushed back out to the geotechnical and planning systems that want them. The point is that the survey office and the pit end up looking at one picture, with one datum, rather than reconciling two.
None of that is surveying. The Mine Workings Plan remains the mine surveyor’s statutory document, prepared to RS10, and no operational system substitutes for it.
See how HazView works for geotechnical engineers, or book a demo.
Related guides
- Recognised Standards for Queensland Open Cut Coal Mines
- Reviewing the Effectiveness of Your Safety and Health Management System
- Emergency Preparedness for Small Mines and Quarries
- RS22: Management Structure for the Safety and Health Management System
- All QLD Open Cut Coal guides
Frequently asked questions
Who can be a mine surveyor in Queensland?
A registered surveyor with the Surveyors Board of Queensland. It is a statutory appointment, and RS10 addresses the mine surveyor’s liability directly.
How often must the Mine Workings Plan be submitted?
A copy is supplied to the Chief Inspector annually under section 67 of the Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999. The plan itself is kept at the mine, and must be prepared within three months of the mine opening or as the Chief Inspector otherwise directs.
What datum do Queensland mine plans use?
The Mine Workings Plan is referenced to MGA94, based on GDA94 values, with the relationship between the mine grid and GDA94 shown on the plan. Heights come from a datum station referenced to GDA94 and the Australian Height Datum.
What does RS10 say about old workings?
Existing plans should be regarded with suspicion until verified, every effort should be made to obtain information about the extent and location of old workings, and where old workings may constitute a danger it is to be assumed for plan marking purposes that they contain water or fill until the contrary is proven.
What if part of the plan cannot be accurate?
The site senior executive must ensure those parts are clearly marked, and must ensure the plan is still sufficiently accurate to achieve an acceptable level of risk for operations at the mine. Marking the uncertainty is the requirement. Hiding it is the failure.
Does RS10 apply to open cut mines?
Yes. It sets out themes and layers separately for open cut and underground operations, and the Mine Workings Plan obligation applies either way.