If you have a collapse of underground workings , e.g., galleries, crosscuts, pillars and blind shafts... a compensation in space takes place for the ore, gangue and wall rocks excavated by miners. As a consequence, the hanging wall rocks fill in the open space and after a while depending on the rock strength and the size of underground workings you will see a mining subsidence at the surface.

In theory, if you have rock material with swelling behaviour such as clay, the free access of water via the abandoned underground workings may change the volume. I myself have not yet been faced with this phenomenon and only been faced with gravity-driven collapse of anthropogenic cut-and-fill structures.

Let us know more about the depth of the mining works, the wall and country rocks, the size of underground working etc. At the moment my guess is rather hypothetical in view of the database presented.

it might be due to slow moving landslide on a listeric surface. Sliding on a curved surface such as occurring in rotational landslides (slump) in some cases includes both uplifting and subsiding areas.

Each gravity-driven mass wasting process works its way top-down and means a lowering of the height of landforms at the site where the processes take place. They cannot explain a "rising landscape".

Dear Giaime Tocco thank you for your interesting technical question. I cannot give you an expert answer like Harald G. Dill. However, you might perhaps find the following research article interesting:

An Investigation of Sinkhole Subsidence and its Preventive Measures in Underground Coal Mining

Article An Investigation of Sinkhole Subsidence and its Preventive M...

This paper is freely available as public full text on ResearchGate.

The first question that comes to my mind is what your reference is for your measurements of subsidence and rise. Is it possible that your reference frame is subsiding or moving, so as to give the appearance of relative rise at some of your points outside you expected area of subsidence?

One possible source of a rise in your non-subsiding points would simply be tectonic or magmatic movements. A couple of centimeters in 10 years is completely plausible tectonic or magmatic deformation in many areas of the world.

You didn't mention what survey methods were being used for your monitoring. That would be enlightening information.

I will finish by pointing out that the toes of some large moving masses do rise (are pushed up), even though the total change in potential energy is negative because of the large mass upslope that has moved downward. That said, I can't envision a mine setting where you would have such a landslide and not be aware of its movements and possible effects on your measurements.

I would like to thank you for all your answers. Here are some additional information about the study area.

The area is relatively narrow, i.e. approx 1 km2. In brief, the geological structure of the area is complicated by a sub-vertical contact surface between permeable limestone and impermeable metamorphic rocks. No clay are reported, according to literature. Underground works are only present in limestone rocks. The mine was closed in 1997 and topographic monitoring started around 2010 after subsidence evidences were found. Since mine closure, a significant groundwater uplift occurred (i.e. watershield rised from +8 mslm in 1996 to +63 mslm in 2015, stable since then).

Topographic monitoring is carried on using optical and laser measurements, but sistematic errors in measurement causing the significant observed trend were excluded.

I found some literature (see attachment) where a "similar" case was reported (based on remote sensing measurement).

Article Upward surface movement above deep coal mines after closure ...

What has been exploited at this mining site ?

Is the mine in a valley ?

Some basic information. The rock consists of grains (solid miner matter), matrix (solid mineral matter and organic matter), cement (mineral matter), fluids (mainly water, fluid HC), and gas (gaseous HC). The matrix-fluid-gas system should have been affected. If you speak of "rising rocks" ; is it only in the hanging wall rock of the mine works or laterally? It is difficult to give at the moment a guiding piece of advice.

As indicated there appears no gravity caused movement along a slope or ground with some gradient where the mined area is located. Personally, it has been seen at some locations where slope instability phenomena and landslide/slope failure incidences (in areas nearer to toe portions or end portions of run-outs) or land subsidence/ground crack affected locations that were studied in past in some parts of Himalaya and Western Ghats of India; but then there it was due to slope forming material being over-saturated fine to medium grained material or clayey soil. In the case referred in question with some additional information floated next, possibility cannot be ruled out about the moment due to compression strains, tilt or curvature of land etc or on account of irregular topography and associated irregular stresses.

Dear all,

according to many of the observation you made, we have decided to perform a aupplementary review of the measurement and a cross-checking using different methods.

I will update the question after results are available.

Thank you.