A detailed search and re-evaluation of the known historical cases of tailings dam failure was carried out. A corpus of 147 cases of worldwide tailings dam disasters, from which 26 located in Europe, was compiled in a database. This contains six sections, including dam location, its physical and constructive characteristics, actual and putative failure cause, sludge hydrodynamics, socio-economic...

Regional water pollution and use of unregulated water sources can be an important mixed metals exposure pathway for rural populations located in areas with limited water infrastructure and an extensive mining history. Using censored data analysis and mapping techniques we analyzed the joint geospatial distribution of arsenic and uranium in unregulated water sources throughout the Navajo Nation,...

Ground subsidence monitoring is of paramount importance in relation to the safety and efficiency of underground mining operations. Moreover, in established coal fields in eastern Australia, it has become harder and harder to select underground minesites which can avoid major engineering structures both on the surface and underground (highways, bridges, buildings, abandoned workings of old under...

In Zambia, like in other colonies, the British introduced a distinction between ”crown land” and ”native reserve land”. While in the latter land management and all the natural resources going with it, was left to ”native authorities” according to the principle of indirect rule, the former was administered in keeping with British regulations. Areas which lend to commercial farming, sites of copp...

The history of mining disasters includes cases of subsidence and collapse into workings, and also a number of inrushes into underground mines, where deficiencies in surveying, or in maintenance and interpretation of plans, were prime factors. The most recent incident in Australia was at the Gretley Colliery in NSW, in 1996. The most recent such incident in the USA was at the Quecreek Mine in So...

Greenhouse experiments were carried out for phytoremediation of the Pb/Zn abandoned tailings (pH 3.2 and high metal content) of Rampura-Agucha Mines, Rajasthan. Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp. (cowpea) was chosen as a test crop. On unamended tailings, the seeds of the test plant showed no germination. The tailing was amended with lime (3% on weight basis), 3% lime + NPK (diammonium phosphate at 60...

Asymmetric flow-field flow fractionation-inductively-coupled plasma-mass spectrometry was used to determine whether colloidal arsenic (As) exists in soil pore water and soil extract samples at two arsenic-contaminated abandoned gold mines (Montague and Goldenville, Nova Scotia). Colloidal arsenic was found in 12 out of the 80 collected samples (=15%), and was primarily associated with iron (Fe)...