Letter to the editor `Facile’ explanation of monitoring device

Your article “Listening device to minimize cave-ins” (May 28/90) says researchers at Queen’s University have developed a listening device that “identifies places to dig so that cave-ins will not occur.” That statement is a simplification of the complexities of modern mining methods and the increasingly important role of microseismic systems in monitoring mining activities.

We miners need all the help we can get to minimize the incidence and the effects of rock bursts. But, by trivializing the hard work of geomechanics in both academia and the field, you do a disservice to the industry while misleading lay people with the facile statement that cave-ins will not occur. J.A. Riddell Onaping, Ont.