Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Statement in line 258 and 259 is not correct.

Highest P10 was calculated for S2 fracture set with value 0.39? m^-1 (0.51) and lowest for S3 with value 0,22? m^-1(0.16). ?? check the values in Table 2.

Statement in line 283 and 284 need to be checked or recalculated again.

Volumetric Joint Count for our example, four discontinuity sets (bedding and three fracture sets) is 2,34 fractures per m³. ?? It is not clear how the value for Jv (m^-3)??? was calculated in Table 4.

Author Response

Answers to Reviewer 1

Dear Reviewer,

Thank You very much for Your effort to revise and improve this manuscript with Your comments and remarks. Here are the answers:

Statement in line 258 and 259 is not correct. – acknowledged and corrected. Highest and lowest average P₁₀

Highest P10 was calculated for S2 fracture set with value 0.39? m^-1 (0.51) and lowest for S3 with value 0,22? m^-1(0.16). ?? check the values in Table 2. – corrected, average P₁₀ for entire set

Statement in line 283 and 284 need to be checked or recalculated again. - corrected

Answers to Reviewer 1

Dear Reviewer,

Thank You very much for Your effort to revise and improve this manuscript with Your comments and remarks. Here are the answers:

Statement in line 258 and 259 is not correct. – acknowledged and corrected. Highest and lowest average P₁₀

Highest P10 was calculated for S2 fracture set with value 0.39? m^-1 (0.51) and lowest for S3 with value 0,22? m^-1(0.16). ?? check the values in Table 2. – corrected, average P₁₀ for entire set

Statement in line 283 and 284 need to be checked or recalculated again. - corrected

Volumetric Joint Count for our example, four discontinuity sets (bedding and three fracture sets) is 2,34 fractures per m³. ?? It is not clear how the value for Jv (m^-3)??? was calculated in Table 4. – corrected and all values are recalculated. It was calculated by the equation 2

Kind regards,

Authors

Volumetric Joint Count for our example, four discontinuity sets (bedding and three fracture sets) is 2,34 fractures per m³. ?? It is not clear how the value for Jv (m^-3)??? was calculated in Table 4. – corrected and all values are recalculated. It was calculated by the equation 2

Kind regards,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

General Remarks:

Generally, the paper presents an innovative and effective approach to utilize existing technologies to obtain valuable information in a slim workflow.

Especially the use of software requires the understanding of the mechanisms within the software. As such, the workflow within the Move software should be explained more in detail. Especially which kind of cluster analysis is used, what are the input parameters? The same should be done for the Fisher Measure of Dispersion.

From the context, the final results appear to be calculated as mean values. However, before that, the Fisher Dispersion as a measure of dispersion of the results was calculated. In the context of future mining prospects, the dispersion of the results is of high interest to assess the suitability of the new mining field. As such a measure of dispersion (e.g. standard deviation) that is widely used in the industry should be given for the final results as well. Additionally, geologic quality features are spatially distributed. While a spatial analysis of the results might be too much within the constraints of one paper, the results should at least be described/plotted with respect to their spatial relation. Then also in the outlook, it can be referred to future usage possibilities to analyse these data spatially in the resource estimation and mine planning context.

General correction needs:

Sub- and superscripts

The use of sub- and superscripts is not concise and should be corrected for the final submission.

Comma and Point

English uses point (.) as decimal separator. This needs to be corrected and consistent throughout the paper.

Articles

The use of the articles “the” and “a” should be revised to be consistent with the correct use of the English language. Minor errors in this regard can be found approximately in every second to third sentence.

Example:

Line 135 ff: The best way to observe and measure fracture system parameters (orientation, density intensity, cross-cutting relations etc.) are in the open pits, on the outcrops, road cuts or on a terrain with no soil or vegetation.

Author Response

Answers to Reviewer 2

Dear Reviewer,

Thank You very much for Your effort to revise and improve this manuscript with Your comments and remarks. Here are the answers:

General Remarks:

Generally, the paper presents an innovative and effective approach to utilize existing technologies to obtain valuable information in a slim workflow.

Especially the use of software requires the understanding of the mechanisms within the software. As such, the workflow within the Move software should be explained more in detail. Especially which kind of cluster analysis is used, what are the input parameters? The same should be done for the Fisher Measure of Dispersion. – done, text is updated by more detail description of the Move workflow.

From the context, the final results appear to be calculated as mean values. However, before that, the Fisher Dispersion as a measure of dispersion of the results was calculated. In the context of future mining prospects, the dispersion of the results is of high interest to assess the suitability of the new mining field. As such a measure of dispersion (e.g. standard deviation) that is widely used in the industry should be given for the final results as well. Additionally, geologic quality features are spatially distributed. While a spatial analysis of the results might be too much within the constraints of one paper, the results should at least be described/plotted with respect to their spatial relation. Then also in the outlook, it can be referred to future usage possibilities to analyse these data spatially in the resource estimation and mine planning context.

General correction needs:

Sub- and superscripts - corrected

The use of sub- and superscripts is not concise and should be corrected for the final submission. corrected

Comma and Point - corrected

English uses point (.) as decimal separator. This needs to be corrected and consistent throughout the paper. - corrected

Articles

The use of the articles “the” and “a” should be revised to be consistent with the correct use of the English language. Minor errors in this regard can be found approximately in every second to third sentence. – corrected by the native English speaker.

Example:

Line 135 ff: The best way to observe and measure fracture system parameters (orientation, density intensity, cross-cutting relations etc.) are in the open pits, on the outcrops, road cuts or on a terrain with no soil or vegetation.

Kind regards,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The work presented is a low-cost methodology to measure discontinuities in boreholes. The work may be of interest, but to be published the manuscript must be considerably improved.

First, it is necessary to include in the introduction a more exhaustive bibliographic review of the methodology that is currently used, both commercially and academically, to measure discontinuities within surveys.

On the other hand, it is necessary to improve the methodology section. Mainly in the description of the method used. It is not stated where the cameras are located and what method is used to maintain the orientation of the cameras and how the orientation of the discontinuities is determined once the camera is rotated to take measurements.

Subsequently, in the discussion section, what is done is a summary of the results, however, an assessment of the proposed method should be made and the advantages over existing methods should be established.

In this work it is necessary to apply the Terzaghi Weighting (Terzaghi, 1965). Otherwise, the data obtained will have a bias because when orientation measurements are made, a bias is introduced in favor of those features which are perpendicular to the direction of surveying. Without this correction, the data obtained cannot be considered of quality.

Finally, there are a series of misprints and errors that need to be corrected:

• A decimal commas is used throughout the text and must be replaced by a decimal point.
• Line 39, Dimension stone cannot be considered as mineral resource.
• Figure 1, graphic and numerical scale do not match.
• Figure 1, In the legend there are no differences in the K₁ lithologies
• Figure 2A, no graphical scale is placed on a landscape photograph.
• Lines 137-138, “terrain with no soil or vegetation” is the same as an outcrop.
• Figure 6, what are Sd fractures?
• Line 209, check english.
• Table 1, there is data in this table that is not understood. For example, why are there only 16 So measures in the survey? Why no S₃ measures in outcrop?
• Lines 241-245, this paragraph should go to the discussion section, not in the results section.
• Table 2, Fracture set S3: in the intervals in which no discontinuity has been measured, P₁₀ is equal to zero, so to get the average, divide by 6, not by 3 (only the sections in which discontinuities have been found). It would give 0.11 not 0.22.
• Line 272, the spacing for S1 is the same as the apparent spacing for all families .... this cannot be !!!!!!!!
• Table 4, it is an unnecessary table as it only repeats the last two columns of Table 2.
• Lines 288-290, RQD needs to be calculated from the data presented.
• Line 310, few cm?
• Lines 312-315, rewrite and explain. It is not understood what the problem is.
• Line 350, “Except of fracture orientation”, if this is so, then all the previous work is meaningless.

Author Response

Authors answers to the review no. 3:

Dear Reviewer,

Thank You very much for Your effort to revise and improve this manuscript with Your comments and remarks. Here are the answers:

The work presented is a low-cost methodology to measure discontinuities in boreholes. The work may be of interest, but to be published the manuscript must be considerably improved.

First, it is necessary to include in the introduction a more exhaustive bibliographic review of the methodology that is currently used, both commercially and academically, to measure discontinuities within surveys. – noted and improved. This is added: “Recently, digital borehole camera borehole video logging technology (borehole camera, optical and acoustic televiewer) is widely used in exploration technology geological and hydrogeological and nuclear waste research [3–10], Civil Engineering and Geotechnical Engineering [8,9,11–16].”

On the other hand, it is necessary to improve the methodology section. Mainly in the description of the method used. It is not stated where the cameras are located and what method is used to maintain the orientation of the cameras and how the orientation of the discontinuities is determined once the camera is rotated to take measurements. – acknowledged and methodology section is improved. Part added: Borehole camera was transported by terrain vehicle to the drillhole location. Camera was then centered above drillhole by tripod and depth was set to zero m. Camera orientation was checked (on each drillhole) while the camera was still at surface. After all initial checking was set up, the camera was lowered into the drillhole with a winch. Since camera has smaller radius then the drillhole, centering the camera was done with a tripod placed exactly above the drillhole. Camera stillness was partially established by tripod and partially by slow lowering of camera to the drillhole. Camera needs to be still for acquiring precise orientation so sometimes it was necessary to wait for camera to stabilize. Alternatively, it is possible to use stabilizers between camera and drillhole wall but it is dangerous in the open hole but it can be dangerous due to possible collapse of the drillhole wall (in the faulted or karstified intervals).

Subsequently, in the discussion section, what is done is a summary of the results, however, an assessment of the proposed method should be made and the advantages over existing methods should be established. – acknowledged and done.

In this work it is necessary to apply the Terzaghi Weighting (Terzaghi, 1965). Otherwise, the data obtained will have a bias because when orientation measurements are made, a bias is introduced in favor of those features which are perpendicular to the direction of surveying. Without this correction, the data obtained cannot be considered of quality.- Thank You very much for the advice and remark. All data are reinterpreted and Terzaghi bias correction is applied, fractures in each set were revised and the new plots were made in figure 8 as well as statistical parameters in tables.

Finally, there are a series of misprints and errors that need to be corrected:

• A decimal commas is used throughout the text and must be replaced by a decimal point. - corrected
• Line 39, Dimension stone cannot be considered as mineral resource. – acknowledged, replaced with natural resource
• Figure 1, graphic and numerical scale do not match. – acknowledged, numerical scale deleted since scale can be changed during change in text layout in publishing process.
• Figure 1, In the legend there are no differences in the K₁ lithologies – corrected and improved: K2 (1): fossiliferous limestones and brecciated dolomites; K1 (limestones, dolomitic limestones and dolomites).
• Figure 2A, no graphical scale is placed on a landscape photograph. – graphical scale is lower right corner
• Lines 137-138, “terrain with no soil or vegetation” is the same as an outcrop. – acknowledged, deleted phrase
• Figure 6, what are Sd fractures? – Noted that letters are hardly visible on the stereonet. This is improved and new figure is uploaded. It is not Sd fractures it is S₀, bedding.
• Line 209, check english. – corrected and rephased
• Table 1, there is data in this table that is not understood. For example, why are there only 16 So measures in the survey? Why no S₃ measures in outcrop? – Question is understandable! Bedding planes were defined on the drillhole cores based on the angle and morphology of the plane. Since dip angle was around 45 degrees it was hard to say at the time is it the plane actual bedding plane or fracture. For these 16 planes we were certain that they are bedding planes. Why no S₃ measurements in the field, we did not find any! Also, S₁ and S₂ have only few measurements. Surface measurements were good only for bedding planes and that by the sea as in fig 2A. This was the main reason why we came up with this solution of measuring orientation with camera because we would not have practically any measurements. We explain this also in the text.
• Lines 241-245, this paragraph should go to the discussion section, not in the results section. – noted and moved to Discussion.
• Table 2, Fracture set S3: in the intervals in which no discontinuity has been measured, P₁₀ is equal to zero, so to get the average, divide by 6, not by 3 (only the sections in which discontinuities have been found). It would give 0.11 not 0.22. – acknowledged and corrected
• Line 272, the spacing for S1 is the same as the apparent spacing for all families .... this cannot be !!!!!!!! –noted - this is only for drillhole B-3. Depth of the drillhole is 79,4 m and we recorded, 6 fractures of that system in that whole interval. Average apparent spacing for the whole set is 5,67 m. These lines were rephased and only average values were described in text.
• Table 4, it is an unnecessary table as it only repeats the last two columns of Table 2. Acknowledged. Table is deleted
• Lines 288-290, RQD needs to be calculated from the data presented. – First parameter that we calculated was RQD. But since RQD is “the percentage of intact core pieces longer than 100 mm in the total” we calculate RQD for all cores between 90-100 % (even in the more fractured parts of deposit). These are logical since we investigate potential dimension stone deposit and if RQD is lower, it would not be the good location for quarry. Based on these conclusions, we moved to P₁₀ and other calculated parameters to define the rock mass quality.
• Line 310, few cm? – noted and quantified.
• Lines 312-315, rewrite and explain. It is not understood what the problem is. – we were not able to validate our measurements at this stage of research. We did measure and obtain some preliminary fracture sets but currently no exact way to prove that our measurements were correct in sense of surface cut or underground gallery or similar mining object. This is also logical since our results should give some input to the investors should they proceed with the investment or abandon it. But, by putting our fracture system pattern in the geological structure we can validate our fracture set interpretation, are these sets logical or possible based on the geological structure or not.
• Line 350, “Except of fracture orientation”, if this is so, then all the previous work is meaningless. – rephased to “In addition to fracture orientation”

Kind regards,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

• A decimal commas is used throughout the text and must be replaced by a decimal point. – corrected

They are not all corrected. For example in Fig. 3, in Table 1, in lines 322, 333.

• Figure 2A, no graphical scale is placed on a landscape photograph. – graphical scale is lower right corner

You cannot put scale, because it is a perspective and the scale changes.

• On the other hand, it is necessary to improve the methodology section.

It would improve a lot with a photograph of the device with both cameras.

• Lines 269-273. The data do not match those in Table 1.

• In the model (Fig. 6, 8) replace anticline axis whit axial plane

• Lines 415-424 should go to the conclusions section.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank You very much for Your effort to revise and improve this manuscript with Your comments and remarks. Here are the answers:

 -  decimal commas is used throughout the text and must be replaced by a decimal point. – corrected They are not all corrected. For example in Fig. 3, in Table 1, in lines 322, 333. – acknowledged and corrected in other places

- Figure 2A, no graphical scale is placed on a landscape photograph. – graphical scale is lower right corner – You cannot put scale, because it is a perspective and the scale changes.- understanded and corrected. Graphical scale removed and in the figure, description is stated that layers are 0,5-1 m thick.

- On the other hand, it is necessary to improve the methodology section. It would improve a lot with a photograph of the device with both cameras. – acknowledged, photograph added to figure 4.

- Lines 269-273. The data do not match those in Table 1. – noticed the error. Fixed.

- In the model (Fig. 6, 8) replace anticline axis whit axial plane - corrected

- Lines 415-424 should go to the conclusions section. - corrected

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf