ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,467,359, issued on Nov. 11, was assigned to NEWCREST MINING Ltd. (Australia).
"Hydraulic fracturing a rock mass" was invented by Gabriel Jose Amorer (Victoria, Australia).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Methods of hydraulic fracturing a rock mass as part of a method of establishing a block cave mine or extending an existing block cave mine includes (a) drilling a plurality of holes downwardly into the rock mass using drill rig equipment positioned on the ground above a proposed or existing block cave mine; and (b) injecting a hydraulic fracturing fluid into the drilled holes from above-ground hydraulic fracturing equipment and inducing fra...