Two contrasting examples are quoted in this paper. The Bangladesh government made a decision to go to underground quarrying in 1994. The country, which has an annual demand for hard rock aggregate of about 5Mt, is located on the flood plains of the Ganges River and does not have ready access to surface hard rock deposits. Bangladesh must import its aggregate from India, Indonesia and Bhutan. The Maddhapara quarry is a high quality sub-surface deposit of granite, granodiorite and gneiss and is accessed by two shafts to a depth of approximately 370 m.
Underground mining is by open stoping with three levels for extraction, drilling and ventilation.
The operation is labour intensive with nearly 800 people employed and the operation involves primary crushing underground as well as an underground rail haulage system for hauling the rock to the crusher. Norway with its competent rock conditions, is an ideal location for tunnelling infrastructure projects and underground quarrying. Production is underway with their first underground quarry in the city of Bergen. Attributes for each block can be numeric, calculated or alphabetic, and they can be added or deleted at any time. These attributes could include such parameters as quality, costs, density, strength or any other physical quality that would be of importance to the estimation process.