Study on Surface Damage Induced by High Heavy Layer Movement and Mining-Induced Earthquakes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Upon thorough review, it has been observed that the manuscript resembles a technical report rather than a scientific article. To enable a proper and rigorous evaluation, it is recommended that the authors restructure the document by the IMRaD format (Introduction, Methodology, Results, and Discussion), ensuring it meets the standards of a scientific publication. Proper restructuring will allow for a more accurate review and specific suggestions for improvement.

I believe manuscripts should follow the IMRaD structure, the standard format for scientific articles. For this reason, I have not proceeded with the review of the manuscript. Upon reading it, I observed that the manuscript lacks the proper structure of a research article. I recommended that it be rewritten to follow the IMRaD format before it can be considered for peer review. As currently presented, it resembles a technical report.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

English needs to be improved

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript can be recommended for publication. However, before that, several points must be addressed by the authors. The comments are as follows:

1) Keywords are too long. They can be selected shorter.

2) Explanation about figure 4 is vague. Besides, quality of figures 4 (a-d) are low. They must be enhanced.

3) The state-of-the-art must be emphasized in the introduction.

4) With how many assumptions is the Eq.1  written. It is so simplified, but the assumptions are not mentioned.

5) Eq. 4 for mode shapes must be proven. Writing only the final result is not enough. The derivation procedure should be added. I am aware that obtaining Eq. 4 may contain several formulations, however, at least the main relations must be added.

6) In figure 7, the figure 7d is not among any types of crack growth (not type I, not II, not III). What is that?

7) Where are the values in Table 2 coming from?

8) Figure 13 need more elaboration.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper applsci-3614936 attempts to study the surface damage in a mining area in China and the related induced seismicity.  The final diagrams of the paper present the profile and patterns during mine earthquakes. The paper is very hard to follow because of mixed expressions written in scattered places. All figures are of very low dpi. There is lack of statistical analysis and all informations are presented visually as e.g. in Figure 13 a-f. Adopting a simplistic visual approach, several of the claims become spurious. Very importantly the paper has the form rather of a local report than a paper of international interest. In general it is very simplistic. 18 figures are shown with several overlapping information. The English have some problems. 

 

My personal opinion is that the paper cannot be rectified by a revision, because I think that it must be reworded fully, combined with proper statistics and provide several aspects that can be of interest to other scientific disciplines. SInce non of these are found, I regret not to suggest its publication. Below I include 24 specific comments.

 

1. I would suggest either the term “mining–induced seismicity” or the term “mining induced earthquakes”. The term “mine earthquakes” is in use also. But not all terms together. Sureleny not “mine earthquake.

2.Please fix this throughout text. Some text about the layers is needed (heavy, conglomerate, key startum etc.) 

3.Lines 42-43 need references.

4.I think that the Introduction should begin in Line 42 or line 78. There the terms “O-X”, “S”, “thita”, “C”, “T” type should be defined prior to the references.

5. It is Cao et al. [10] Du et al. [5-7] and so on.

6.It is not earthquake but earthquakes in the majority of cases.

7..line 58 two times “stratum”in the same sentence.

8.line 75 two times mine earthquake (earthquakes) in the same sentence.

9.lines 78-93 should move up.

10.heavy layer-type mine earthquakes!

11.Figure 1: Micro-seismicity sensor. The legends should be described in caption.

12.Not all readers are familiar with the codes or the geology of the area. Proper explanation is needed.

13.What is the working face? Is profile meant?

14.Figure 2 does show additional things. Kindly remove this.

15.The details of lines 124-129 are not necessary. It is better if the necessary information are shown in Figure 1.

16.Figure 3 is related to comment 2 of this review. Figure 3 is of low dpi. In every sense. Blurring figure, fonts when zoomed (see differences with the font of the caption).

17. infrequent==>rare

18.In general the expressions regarding Table 1 have n statistics, although statistical analysis is mentioned. The caption of Table 1 is irrelevant.

19.Figure 4 is of extremely low dpi analysis. It is not a 3D map because a and c are not 3D figures. No discussion on Figure 4 is found, only some limited visual analysis (lines 154-156)

20.”For a detailed illustration, refer to Figure 5. “But figure 5 is of low dpi and I do not comprehend its necessity.

21.Lines 171-180 are given without any link to the previous information and they are not supported with references

22.The equations 1-8 have no references at all.

23.Lines 239-250 are not supported by data or references. So claims are spurious.

24.Figure 7 is of low dpi.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper “Study on surface damage induced by high heavy layer movement and mine earthquake” reports a research work about the evaluation of the surface damage due to bending and fracturing of heavy layer. In particular, the authors have used numerical simulations by means UDEC commercial software. In general, the topic of the manuscript is interesting also considering that the topic is not completely covered by current literature. Furthermore, the paper appears well-organized in its different Sections. Some suggestions to improve the paper are given below:

- Section 5.1.2: The dimensions of the numerical model (length 1200 m and height 700 m) must be justified in detail. Are they sufficient to avoid the effects of boundary conditions (see M. Zucca, P. Crespi, G. Tropeano, M. Simoncelli. “On the Influence of Shallow Underground Structures in the Evaluation of the Seismic Signals”, Ingegneria Sismica 2021, 38(1), pp. 23-35)?

- Section 5.2.1: Was a construction stage analysis carried out? Has the resetting of the initial displacement due to the geostatic condition been considered?

- Figure 13: Given the subsidence variations obtained, when can the presence of the mine earthquake be considered critical?

- Additional considerations about the effects of the mine earthquake in other cases than the one analyzed, must be added in the conclusions

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

OBSERVATIONS

ABSTRACT

• The abstract mentions the research problem, but the objective of the study is missing; there should be an explicit sentence stating the objective.

• The conclusion should be described more explicitly.

1. INTRODUCTION

• The objective should be stated explicitly as expected in a scientific article (it should be written as a paragraph at the end of the introduction).

2. METHODOLOGY

• For better understanding, a workflow diagram of the entire study should be included, covering: Data Acquisition, Geomechanical Modeling, UDEC Simulation, Application of Seismic Load, and Comparative Subsidence Assessment.

3. RESULTS
3.1.1. Subsidence Characteristics of the Model Without Mining-Induced Earthquakes

• Page 14, line 394: “...leaving the surface layer unaffected.”
  This statement should be supported by numerical displacement data, which are not provided here.

• Include maximum subsidence values per excavation stage, either using a small table or a descriptive sentence.

3.1.2. Subsidence Characteristics with Mining-Induced Earthquakes

• Page 16, line 425: “To some extent, the heavy layer-type mining-induced earthquakes exacerbated surface damage.”
  This statement should be accompanied by quantitative data or graphs (e.g., percentage increases).

3.1.3. Comparative Analysis of Subsidence Patterns

• This section reports differences in subsidence with and without mining-induced earthquakes as percentages. However, no statistical analysis is provided to assess the significance of these differences. Given that data from multiple monitoring points are available, it is recommended to apply basic tests (such as the paired t-test) to determine whether the observed differences are statistically significant or due to random variation.

• Page 20, line 479: The term "single seismic event" may confuse readers if it is not clearly stated that it refers to a simulated or artificial test event, not a single natural phenomenon.

4. DISCUSSION

• This section should include bibliographic references to compare the findings with other similar studies. Although it mentions that the data are consistent with the typical behavior of heavy layer collapse, it does not explicitly contrast the results with previous authors such as Dou et al., Bai et al., or Zhang et al., who are cited in the introduction.

• Review how the discussion section should be structured for a research article.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors addressed my comments well.

Author Response

Thank you once again for your constructive feedback, which undoubtedly helps enhance the quality and clarity of our manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper has been enhanced and the response gave clarifications. I suggest some extra revisions.

 

1. The authors have, satisfactory, inserted several new lines to address my comments, but the approach of quoting inside parenthesis has some mistakes (dots in some case) and it also breaks the flow of the text. So the changes must be incorporated in the main text and the text flow has to be fixed again.In general the inserted text shows great effort.

2.Line 78: two time F-shaped.

3.There are some scattered errors in 10^power from.

4.The fonts in equations are different compared to the  in-text symbols and the in-text fonts. All dents should be the same. I suggest hat you employ some of these equations to avoid unnecessary complexity. Ref 26 is from 1945. Ref 25 from 2006. For all these equations the references are 25 26 and 27. Add 1-2 recent ones to show also the necessity. .In general the necessity of the study should be enhanced with recent references .

5.Lines 295-301 and figure 6 need papers to support the claims.

6.Try to omit some subplots between figures 8-11. Show only characteristic plots.

7,You have to make changes to show the generalisation of your whole approach to avoid the sense of a local review. This is the most significant problem.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf