Method used for safety pillar reconstruction on the example of the Dunajewski gallery in the “Wieliczka” Salt Mine
Andrzej Gonet, Stanisław Stryczek
Vol. 35, no. 1 (2018), pp. 49-55, [1]
Preserving such unique objects as the “Wieliczka” Salt Mine for the future generations is an obvious obligation. Water is the biggest threat to this object and many similar ones. At the last stage or even in the course of mine exploitation salt mines are flooded as this is the simplest method of their liquidation applied worldwide. However this method cannot be used in the “Wieliczka” Salt Mine, which was put on the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage list in 1978. Geological and hydrogeological conditions in the Dunajewski gallery are presented in this paper. The Dunajewski gallery is localized directly east of the Mina gallery, where a catastrophic water flux was observed in 1992, threatening the mine with flooding and with considerable damage on the surface. Authors describe the pipeline injection method which was used in that situation. This was a fast and economic method thanks to which the Dunajewski gallery and the adjoining leaching gallery could be efficiently and tightly filled. Specialist recipes for sealing slurry had to be worked out. The slurry was prepared in an injection column elevated in the neighborhood of the Kościuszko shaft and then transported with special pipelines through the Kościuszko shaft and some workings to the Dunajewski gallery. In this way the off-side safety pillar in the area of the Dunajewski gallery was reconstructed.