One of the large-scale field waste rock experiments (test piles) conducted as part Diavik Waste Rock Project was deconstructed, providing a spatially located set geochemical, mineralogical, and particle-size distribution samples. Geostatistical analyses were for sulfur carbon content saturated hydraulic conductivity, which affect geochemical evolution rock, to investigate spatial dependence the...

Landfill and radioactive waste disposal risk assessments focus on contaminant transport and are principally concerned with understanding the movement of gas, water and solutes through engineered barriers and natural groundwater systems. However, microbiological activity can impact on transport processes changing the chemical and physical characteristics of the subsurface environment. Such effec...

Svalbard, situated in the high Arctic, is an important past and present coal mining area. Dozens of abandoned waste rock piles can be found in the proximity of Longyearbyen. This environment offers a unique opportunity for studying the biological control over the weathering of sulphide rocks at low temperatures. Although the extension and impact of acid mine drainage (AMD) in this area is known...

As part of the postclosure safety assessment of Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG’s) proposed Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) for Low and Intermediate Level Waste (L&ILW) at the Bruce site, Ontario, a Gas Generation Model (GGM) has been developed and used to model the detailed generation of gas within the DGR due to corrosion and microbial degradation of the organics and metals present. The GGM is...

Mining activities can increase the bioavailability of metals in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Following over 100 years of copper mining in portions of Michigan's Upper Peninsula (UP) terrestrial ecosystems retain vast quantities of waste rock with traces of cadmium and large concentrations of copper. We compared liver cadmium and copper concentrations in ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus), a...

Achieving better understanding phosphorus (P) flows through urban ecosystems is needed to conserve P, as non-renewable phosphate rock deposits become depleted and the global human population increases. A baseline mass flow analysis (MFA) for P developed for the Twin Cities Watershed (TCW, which includes most of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan region) showed that most P input was stored in...

The application of underground pre-concentration technology to narrow vein mining has the potential to change the entire economics of bulk mining methods when used in narrow vein situations. The rejection of waste at or near the face means that a higher-grade ore can be sent to surface. The waste rock can be reused directly as backfill. Swelling of the muck through blasting means that only 60 t...

An important issue for the performance of underground nuclear waste repositories is the rate of seepage into the waste emplacement drifts. A prediction of this rate is particularly complicated for the potential repository site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, because it is located in thick, unsaturated, fractured tuff formations. Underground openings in unsaturated media might act as capillary barrie...