Stability Analysis of a Large Cavern in Italy forQuarrying Exploitation of a Pink Marble

quarry of the “Cava Madre of Candoglia”, which is a large underground cavern (80 m long, 21 m wide and 48 m high) located in the Ossola Valley of northern Italy, excavated for the exploitation of a vertical vein of pink marble. The research has shown that systematic monitoring and numerical modelling form the basis of a good design for these kinds of mining activities. A detailed back-analysis on ten years of displacement and stress measurements in the marble is presented and discussed On the basis of the obtained results, the design of future mining excavations has been developed, taking both stability (with the support optimization) and economic mining aspects into account.