The causes of mining induced ground steps occurence - Case study from upper Silesia in Poland

The case study of a ground steps creation due to underground mining in Upper Silesia Basin, where for many years was conducted intensive hard coal extraction has been presented in this paper. This type of linear discontinuous deformations is considered as an important threat to the surface building constructions and elements of underground technical infrastructure. This threat is even more important, that presently still we do not have methods for predictions of such phenomena, and protection of building constructions against such damages is difficult, if not impossible. On the basis of the analyzes results shown in the paper, the following factors were pointed, that favor the formation of mining-induced ground steps: the presence of fault outcrops in the vicinity of extraction fields, multiple extraction in several coal seams led to the same border and large values of tensile horizontal strain.