Monitoring and Analysis of Deformation Evolution Law of Fault Activation Caused by Deep Mining in Shizishan Copper Mine, China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
I have to admit that I have read only the abstract and introduction to your manuscript. I was not able to go farther. The manuscript looks as an immature draft that is far from the standards of scientific paper. The main reasons for my negative assessment are as follows:
1. The quality of English is poor. Consequently, several sentences are difficult to understand.
2. Several sentences are logically inconsistent. I am not sure whether it results from inappropriate vocabulary or convolute thinking.
3. Referencing is in disorder. Several references from the list are not cited in the text.
4. There are no citations in the manuscript besides the introduction.
5. The abstract and introduction do not provide an explanation what the monitoring method is.
Summing up the manuscript requires rethinking and rewriting to be comprehensible for the potential readers.
I attach the manuscript with my comments and corrections to the abstract and introduction.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Modification instructions
Dear reviewer：
I am very grateful for your comments on the manuscript. According to your advice， we have extensively modified the original manuscript.
1. The quality of English is poor. Consequently, several sentences are difficult to understand.
Thank you very much for your comments in our manuscript. We have polished and revised the sentences of the full text to further improve the use of grammar and the correctness of sentence expressions in the text, thereby improving the fluency and readability of logical structure and text in the content of the text.
2. Several sentences are logically inconsistent. I am not sure whether it results from inappropriate vocabulary or convolute thinking.
According to this question in our manuscript you mentioned, We have carefully checked the sentences in our manuscript and and have rewritten and further polished the logically inconsistent sentences.
3. Referencing is in disorder. Several references from the list are not cited in the text.
We sincerely thank you for your suggestions for our manuscript. We have carefully checked the disorder references in our manuscript, and we have properly cited the references in our manuscript.
4. There are no citations in the manuscript besides the introduction.
My sincerest thanks for your suggestions for our manuscript. We have cited references in the manuscript at appropriate places besides the introduction.
5. The abstract and introduction do not provide an explanation what the monitoring method is.
Thank you for your valuable comments on our manuscript. Following your suggestion, we have supplemented and explained the monitoring method in the abstract and introduction section of our manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors analyzes the deformation characteristics of fault activation at a certain mine in China. The paper requires major revision considering the following points:
- First of all the English language of the article should be improved considerably. There are many very poor sentences and statements from English point of view such as "Many scholars carried out many researchs". The paper is full of such statements...
- The introduction is very weak as well. The authors present the literature review by explaining what has been done in the chosen papers. For this reason, in the second paragraph of the introduction they discuss the progress in 5 papers only. This is not a way to summarize the progress in the literature and your own contribution with respect to existing ones. Please prepare a proper introduction with a wide review and explanation of the novelty in the paper.
- The motivation and the reasoning of the paper is not convincing. Please explain what has been done in this area in the existing literature and what you propose as novelty.
- Almost all of the references in the article is local (from China). Is there no other researchers from other countries focusing on such problems? Please extend your literature considering global progress in the field.
- On line 120 the author should maybe authors? Such mistakes exist allover the article.
- The results of the observations are explained in text with so many numbers, see e.g. the lines between 264-274. It is very difficult to follow and understand such an approach. Can you please prepare tables or figures to explain your results? Same approach has been followed in the other parts of the paper too.
- Overall the paper is not well-written at all. It has to be updated properly for the consideration of publication in an indexed journal. In this version it is not possible.
Author Response
Modification instructions
Dear reviewer：
I am very grateful for your comments on the manuscript. According to your advice， we have extensively modified the original manuscript.
1. First of all the English language of the article should be improved considerably. There are many very poor sentences and statements from English point of view such as "Many scholars carried out many researchs". The paper is full of such statements.
Thank you very much for your comments in our manuscript. We have further polished the language of the sentences in our manuscript. For the statement "many scholars carried out many studies" you mentioned, we have carefully checked the full text and correctly modified the sentences of this statement.
2. The introduction is very weak as well. The authors present the literature review by explaining what has been done in the chosen papers. For this reason, in the second paragraph of the introduction they discuss the progress in 5 papers only. This is not a way to summarize the progress in the literature and your own contribution with respect to existing ones. Please prepare a proper introduction with a wide review and explanation of the novelty in the paper.
Thank you for your valuable comments on our manuscript. We have reorganized the introduction part of our manuscript, and appropriately added some domestic and foreign references to conduct a wide review and explanation of the novelty in the paper.
3. The motivation and the reasoning of the paper is not convincing. Please explain what has been done in this area in the existing literature and what you propose as novelty.
In the existing retrieved literature, there are less monitoring of the state of fault in deep underground mining, and more is the study of rock burst in deep underground mining. However, in underground mining, the fault structure is unavoidable and must be paid attention to. Underground mining will lead to the fault activation, which will cause other underground disasters, but before the fault activation, the displacement and stress changes of the fault can be observed. Therefore, in this paper, it is necessary to monitor the displacement and stress of the fault in the deep mining process of the Shizishan Copper Mine, and to study the mechanism of the fault activation through the monitoring results.
4. Almost all of the references in the article is local (from China). Is there no other researchers from other countries focusing on such problems? Please extend your literature considering global progress in the field.
My sincerest thanks for your suggestions for our manuscript. We have comprehensively considered the global progress in the field of fault activation induced by deep mining, and have supplemented and extended the references in this paper.
5. On line 120 the author should maybe authors? Such mistakes exist allover the article.
We have changed "author" in line 120 of the manuscript to the correct expression. We have carefully checked the full text, and have corrected such mistakes in the text.
6. The results of the observations are explained in text with so many numbers, see e.g. the lines between 264-274. It is very difficult to follow and understand such an approach. Can you please prepare tables or figures to explain your results? Same approach has been followed in the other parts of the paper too.
We sincerely thank you for your suggestions for our manuscript. Because we have a lot of monitoring data, it has been represented in the manuscript with a line chart. However, the data selected and analyzed for different faults and monitoring points are different. We think that if we add another table for data analysis alone, we will not be able to clearly describe the fault activation law. Therefore, we think that it is better to directly enumerate the data for analysis and explanation, which will make it easier for readers to understand.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This work addressed the monitoring of fault activation and analysis of deformation evolution law caused by deep mining in Shizishan mining area. This work proposes a monitoring system suitable for fault activation and slip in this mining area in view of the fault activation and slip. The structure and the English of the paper are adequate, if moderate English review can be carried out. However, authors are asked to further address the following queries:
[1] Regarding measurements, a more detailed explanation regarding the precision and accuracy of the instruments used in the work must be given.
[2] Section 5.1 starts by presenting a list of equations. It is recommended that a phrase or paragraph is added to introduce the data reduction.
[3] In Eq. (1) that are the meaning of unit "F". Generically, farad (symbol: F) is the SI derived unit of electrical capacitance, the ability of a body to store an electrical charge.
[4] In Eqs.(1) and (2), the same symbol K is used to express both sensitivity coefficient of displacement meter and the sensitivity coefficient of bolt stress meter. But these parameters are different in value and units. Therefore, different symbols must be used.
[5] K is sensitivity coefficient in Eqs.(1) and (2). In both cases, how K has been calibrated? The procedure must be described accordingly in the revised manuscript.
[6] Conclusion must be drawn based on observed results. In the conclusion, both tensile and shear stresses are discussed and comments but how the authors have measured the shear stress in their measurements?
Author Response
Modification instructions
Dear reviewers：
I am very grateful for your comments on the manuscript. According to your advice， we have extensively modified the original manuscript.
1. Regarding measurements, a more detailed explanation regarding the precision and accuracy of the instruments used in the work must be given.
Thank you for your valuable comments on our manuscript. According to your suggestion, We have explained the precision and accuracy of the monitoring instruments in more detail in our manuscript.
2. Section 5.1 starts by presenting a list of equations. It is recommended that a phrase or paragraph is added to introduce the data reduction.
According to your suggestion, We have added a phrase or paragraph to introduce data reduction at the corresponding position in Section 5.1.
3. In Eq. (1) that are the meaning of unit "F". Generically, farad (symbol: F) is the SI derived unit of electrical capacitance, the ability of a body to store an electrical charge.
As you mentioned, "generally, farad (symbol: F) is the SI derived unit of electrical capacity, the ability of a body to store an electrical charge." However, when the unit "F" is used in different places can have different meanings, the meaning of the unit "F" in formula (1) in our manuscript is the real-time measurement value of the multipoint displacement meter.
4. In Eqs.(1) and (2), the same symbol K is used to express both sensitivity coefficient of displacement meter and the sensitivity coefficient of bolt stress meter. But these parameters are different in value and units. Therefore, different symbols must be used.
My sincerest thanks for your suggestions for our manuscript. We have replaced the sensitivity coefficient "K" in formula (2) in the manuscript with "S" for expression.
5. K is sensitivity coefficient in Eqs.(1) and (2). In both cases, how K has been calibrated? The procedure must be described accordingly in the revised manuscript.
Since the multi-point displacement meter has been calibrated and qualified at the factory, it is not necessary to calibrate the equipment if there is no abnormal situation. But when the installation of the measuring equipment is completed, the initial measurement value of the multi-point displacement meter needs to be read every 30 minutes. When the difference between the three consecutive readings is less than 1%, it can be used as the reference value for observation.
The bolt stress meter is mainly calibrated by the press machine. The bolt stress meter is placed on the press machine and calibrated by loading different levels of pressure within the bolt stress measurement range.
We have described it in detail in the corresponding position in our manuscript.
6. Conclusion must be drawn based on observed results. In the conclusion, both tensile and shear stresses are discussed and comments but how the authors have measured the shear stress in their measurements?
We appreciate your comments on our manuscript. We use the borehole stress meter to measure the shear stress. According to the schematic diagram of the borehole stress meter installation in Figure 6, the stress measured by the borehole stress meter is the compressive stress in the direction of the borehole aperture, that is, the variation of the additional shear stress of the rock mass located on the hangingwall and footwall of the fault plane along the dip direction of the fault plane.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
You seriously treated critical comments from all the reviewers. This is a positive sign. The manuscript is now much better and its quality warrants publication.
Reviewer
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript can be accepted in its current revised form.
