5.9
Cards (9)
- ore: commercially valuable deposits of concentrated minerals that can be harvested and used as raw materials
- metals: elements that conduct electricity, heat, and have structural properties for building
- reserve: the known amount of a resource left that can be mined
- overburden: soil, vegetation, and rocks that are removed to reach an ore deposit
- tailings: leftover waste material separated from valuable mineral/metal
- surface mining: removal of overburden to access ore near surface
- open pit
- strip
- mountaintop removal
- placer
- subsurface mining:
- more expensive due to higher insurance and health care costs for workers
- risks: poor ventilation, mine shaft collapse, injury from falling rock, lung cancer, asbestos, fires, explosions
- vertical shaft drilled down into ground
- increasingly used as surface coal deposits are depleted
- Environmental impacts of mining:
- Acid mine drainage: rainwater leaks into abandoned mine tunnels and mixed with pyrite forming sulfuric acid
- methane release: coal mining releases methane gas from rock around coal
- vented out of mine to prevent explosion and continues seeping out after mine closes
- topsoil erosion: habitat loss and increased turbidity
- Rain water carries sulfuric acid into nearby streams or infiltrates groundwater
- lowers pH of water
- PM release
- mine reclamation: process of restoring land to original state after mining has finished
- Restoring original contours of land
- filling empty mine shafts/holes
- replanting of native plants
- return topsoil with acids, metals, and tailings remove