ABSTRACT
Stability of slopes is an important engineering topic because of economic impact on mining and civil enterprises. Failures may be costly in the extreme and have tragic personal consequences. Steep slopes are favorable to the economics of surface mines, while low slope angles favor stability. The trade-off between these two trends almost always results in some slope failures in large, open pit mines. In civil works such as highway cuts, slope failures cannot be tolerated because of the threat to public safety.
