Abstract:
Royalty is a payment made to the owner of mineral rights for the privilege of
extracting minerals from the ground on a lease agreement. Globally, there are three
main methods used for the royalty calculation; namely unit based, value based and
profit based methods. A combination of unit and value based systems is practised in
Sri Lanka. However, an explosive based equation without any scientific base is
adopted for the determination of excavated quantities of some minerals. The main
objective of this study was to find an accurate method to calculate excavated
quantity of a rock for calculation of royalty for industrial minerals in Sri Lanka.
Initially, a multiple-borehole blast was carried out in a selected 'A Grade' quarry. A
total station survey and an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) survey were conducted
to determine the excavated rock volume. The collected aerial photographs for
photogrammetric 3D modelling were processed using Agisoft PhotoScan, Bentley
ContextCapture and Drone Deploy softwares. The accuracy of each method was
determined by comparing each estimated depleted volume with the value obtained
from weighing the blasted tonnage. Photogrammetric 3D modelling gave the least
deviation from the actual volume.
Citation:
Jayawardana, K.P.S.R., Athukorala, D.R.M., Chathuranga, H.M.D. Chrishoban, M., Sampath, J.A.B., Hemalal, P.V.A., Dharmaratne, P.G.R., Premasiri, H.M.R., Chaminda, S.P., & Wickrama, M.A.D.M.G. (2019). Study on royalty for Sri Lankan quarry mining of industrial minerals using photogrammetric 3D modelling.
In D.M.D.O.K. Dissanayake & G.V.I. Samaradivakara (Eds.), Proceedings of International Symposium on Earth Resources Management & Environment 2019 (pp. 3-11). Department of Earth Resources Engineering, University of Moratuwa.
