Spatial and Temporal Study of Supernatant Process Water Pond in Tailings Storage Facilities: Use of Remote Sensing Techniques for Preventing Mine Tailings Dam Failures

Floods from tailings dam failures.

This paper compiles the available information on historic tailings dam failures with the purpose to establish simple correlations between tailings ponds geometric parameters (e.g., dam height, tailings volume) and the hydraulic characteristics of floods resulting from released tailings. Following the collapse of a mining waste dam, only a part of tailings and polluted water stored at the dam is...

Preventing acid mine drainage from mine tailings

Mining activity always has high impact on its surroundings, being waste deposition the cause of multiple and complex problems to the environment. One of them is Acid Mine Drainage (AMD), causing acid water percolation through large areas in the mine site. Portugal was a prosper tungsten producer from the beginning of the XX century, having its apogee during World War II. Nowadays there are mill...

Diversion of Water from a Tailings Dam

UAV Remote Sensing Surveillance of a Mine Tailings Impoundment in Sub-Arctic Conditions

Mining typically involves extensive areas where environmental monitoring is spatially sporadic. New remote sensing techniques and platforms such as Structure from Motion (SfM) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) may offer one solution for more comprehensive and spatially continuous measurements. We conducted UAV campaigns in three consecutive summers (2015–2017) at a sub-Arctic mining site wher...

Impact of mine tailings on surrounding soils: Case study of Draa Lasfar mine, Marrakech- Morocco

The present study represents a first insight into the Draa Lasfar min (Marrakech - Morocco) to assess the degree of polymetallic pollution caused by anthropogenic activities (like mine extraction) and consequently the possible diffusion of heavy metals and to predict the risk of their mobility in the surroundings of the mine area. The edaphologic parameters pH and electrical conductivity (EC) w...