The metals contamination in surface soils and their accumulation in wild plants from the abandoned Burra and Kapunda copper mines located in South Australia were assessed, and the predominant bacterial diversity in the contaminated surface soils from these two abandoned copper mine sites were evaluated through polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) analysis...

Flooded mine workings have good potential as low-enthalpy geothermal resources, which could be used for heating and cooling purposes, thus making use of the mines long after mining activity itself ceases. It would be useful to estimate the scale of the geothermal potential represented by abandoned and flooded underground mines in Europe. From a few practical considerations, a procedure has been...

Concentrations and loads of total mercury and methylmercury were measured in streams draining abandoned mercury mines and in the proximity of geothermal discharge in the Cache Creek watershed of California during a 17-month period from January 2000 through May 2001. Rainfall and runoff were lower than long-term averages during the study period. The greatest loading of mercury and methylmercury ...

Conventional architectural discussions have mainly focused on human living spaces. However, it is also a reality that spaces abandoned from are expanding. Those called ‘brownfields’, for example, and seen as problematic, but there no significance in those actual state? This paper aims to clarify oppose such architecture by mixing the real image of mine sites environmental philosophy. Specifical...

At the Bonfim mine, cyanide processing used to extract gold from abandoned tailings represents an important environmental concern. In order to evaluate cyanide concentrations, twenty samples of sediments of the main streams crossing the mine site, and ten samples of the five mainly tailings were analyzed for total cyanide. Cyanide was found in two samples of tailings (0.83 and 1.44mg/Kg of tota...