abandoned surface mine excavations can be a major environmental, social and/or human healthproblem for the mining industry as well as for the community living nearby. this problem is exacerbated by therapidly growing population encroaching on areas of historic mined lands. the aim of this studywas to assess thesafety status of the historic nyala mine excavation with the purpose of coming up wit...

the paper presents the case study of the current formation of a brazilian pit lake from an iron ore mining activity. the water used for the filling of the lake comes from rain, ground water and the complementary pumpage from a close river. at its final stage, which will be reached around year 2018, lake aguas claras will have a surface area of 0.67 km2 and the depth of 234 m, which will make it...

theoretical review of ‘mining pit lakes’ indicates that like natural lakes such lakes display a huge diversity. they are typically in a non-equilibrium state with respect to their surroundings. hence, at the decommissioning phase of mining operation a detailed technical study are required on different aspects of such created water bodies considering its morphometry, geology, hydrology, water qu...

Theoretical review of ‘mining pit lakes’ indicates that like natural lakes such lakes display a huge diversity. They are typically in a non-equilibrium state with respect to their surroundings. Hence, at the decommissioning phase of mining operation a detailed technical study are required on different aspects of such created water bodies considering its morphometry, geology, hydrology, water qu...

Recently, the mining industry has introduced renewable energy technologies to resolve power supply problems at mines operating in polar regions or other remote areas, and to foster substitute industries, able to benefit from abandoned sites of exhausted mines. However, little attention has been paid to the potential placement of floating photovoltaic (PV) systems operated on mine pit lakes beca...

Since its closure in 1995 and the subsequent accident happened in 1998, the Aznalcóllar mine pit has been used as a disposal site for diverse metal-rich materials removed during the rehabilitation of polluted areas along the Guadiamar river and around the former ore processing facilities. At present, the mine pit is partly flooded and contains a highly acidic (pH 2.7) pit lake with ~6 Hm of met...

Three independent tracer experiments were conducted to quantify the through-flow of water from Herman Pit, an abandoned mercury (Hg) mine pit adjacent to Clear Lake, California, USA. The tracers used were Rhodamine-WT, sulfur hexafluoride, and a mixture of sulfur hexafluoride and neon-22. The tracers were injected into Herman Pit, a generally well-mixed water body of approximately 81,000 m2, an...

The Iberian Pyrite Belt (IPB) hosts one of the world's largest accumulations of acidic mine wastes and pit lakes. The mineralogical and textural characteristics of the IPB ores have favored the oxidation and dissolution of metallic sulfides, mainly pyrite, and the subsequent formation of acidic mining drainages. This work reports the physical properties, hydrogeochemical characteristics, and mi...

the determination of the ultimate pit limit (upl) is the first step in the open pit mine planning process. in this stage that parts of the mineral deposit that are economic to mine are determined. there are several mathematical, heuristic and meta-heuristic algorithms to determine upl. the optimization criterion in these algorithms is maximization of the total profit whilst satisfying the...

Constructing ponds to protect downstream ecosystems is a common practice in opencast coal mine reclamation. As these ponds remain integrated in the landscape, it is important to evaluate the extent of the effect of mine pollution on these ecosystems. However, this point has not been sufficiently addressed in the literature. The main objective of this work was to explore the metal pollution in m...