We recently visited the new Roydon Quarry, which will serve as a source for construction aggregates following the decommissioning of their Pound Road Quarry. Quarry Manager, Nick Hornblow, provided valuable insights while we observed formation of haul roads and the weigh station, extraction of river gravel from the working face and hundreds of metres of river channel cross sections.
The river gravel deposits consist of sand-sized grains up to cobbles about 100-200 mm across. The uniformity of these deposits makes them a perfect aggregate resource for use in residential and civil construction. The earthquake recovery in Christchurch saw demand for such aggregates skyrocket and demand has been ongoing with construction of northern and southern motorways.
Quarry operations have been planned and optimised down to the nearest metre of dump truck and loader movements, including fuel consumption considerations, emissions reduction, dust suppression, and noise minimisation. The loader bucket is big enough to fill a truck in one scoop.
Davis Ogilvie has been asked to assess the stability of the working face. This is interesting from a slope modelling perspective because the extraction method involves letting the working face collapse and then scooping up the fallen gravel with the loader. The loaders are big enough to avoid significant damage from the collapsing face, which fails in generally predictable ways due to the large-scale uniformity of the river gravel deposit.
We look forward to returning to the site once the central processing plant becomes operational next year.
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