What is most likely to happen to an abandoned strip mine?
An abandoned strip mine will partially recover over time. Without human intervention however its recovery will be minimal.
What are the consequences of strip mining?
Surface mining (another name for "strip mining") can severely erode the soil or reduce its fertility; pollute waters or drain underground water reserves; scar or altar the landscape; damage roads, homes, and other structures; and destroy wildlife.
What is a major concern with strip mining?
The dust and debris may contain harmful substances such as sulfur. The sulfur can corrode structures and is hazardous to human health. In addition to ejecting debris surface mines also causes a lot of surface runoff which can contain large amounts of contaminates and move them to streams, rivers, ponds and lakes.
What is an abandoned strip mine?
Abandoned Mine Lands are those lands, waters, and surrounding watersheds where extraction, beneficiation, or processing of ores and minerals (excluding coal) has occurred. These lands also include areas where mining or processing activity is inactive.
Why are abandoned mines a problem?
Many surface and underground abandoned mines, and their associated spoil and refuse piles, provide an ongoing source of acid mine drainage and toxic heavy metals that can have long-term devastating impacts on groundwater, community water supplies, rivers, streams, and aquatic life.
What happens to coal mines when they are abandoned?
Eventually, once the most accessible and valuable materials have been extracted, the mine is closed, and the site must be restored back to its original state. This includes covering up mine entrances, replanting grass and trees, and testing surrounding water, soil, and air for contaminants.
What is the environmental impact of strip mining quizlet?
According to strip-mining opponents, it is impossible to put back a mountain once it is torn down. Runoff and erosion are also grave problems associated with strip-mining. People are often negatively affected as well.
What are the causes and effects of mining?
One cause of mining is population growth. With an increasing population, the overall world consumption levels also increase. This means that in order to be able to provide enough goods for the world population, resources have to be extracted at large scale. One great possibility to extract these resources is mining.
What are the environmental impacts of mining?
Mining: Environmental Impacts Mining can pollute air and drinking water, harm wildlife and habitat, and permanently scar natural landscapes. Modern mines as well as abandoned mines are responsible for significant environmental damage throughout the West.
Why do mines become abandoned?
Blasting caps and other undetonated explosives. Blackdamp accumulating in old mines, which can cause suffocation. Hidden mine shafts, often hidden beneath bushes and grasses and other vegetation that has grown up around the mine entrance. Unstable roofs and passageways, prone to cave-ins.
What happens to an abandoned coal mine?
When underground mines are abandoned, the pumps that kept them dry are often switched off and the mines fill with water. This water is heated by geological processes, and the temperature remains stable year-round.
What causes abandoned mine drainage?
Acid mine drainage is the formation and movement of highly acidic water rich in heavy metals. This acidic water forms through the chemical reaction of surface water (rainwater, snowmelt, pond water) and shallow subsurface water with rocks that contain sulfur-bearing minerals, resulting in sulfuric acid.
What happens to a mine when it is no longer productive?
Once production on a mine stops, a small labour force remains behind to shut down and decommission the site. This involves removing completely the machinery that can be, or needs to be, removed. Often this is taken to another site or sold.
What happens to the land after mining?
During the process of mining, chemicals, and heavy metals are used, and as this process goes on, these chemicals and heavy metals are released. When they are released, they affect the air and water, damaging the entirety of the land, and affecting the local agriculture.
What are the environmental effects of mining lead?
Lead smelters release large quantities of Cd and Pb into the environment as well as smelting and refining produce gaseous (CO2, SO2, NOx, etc.) and particulate matter emissions, sewage waters, and solid wastes; however, these pollutants take a lead to effects human health.
What problems do miners face?
Miners are regularly exposed to harmful contaminants in the air such as silica dust and other mineral dust. This puts them at a greater risk of developing respiratory illnesses such as pneumoconiosis, aka the black lung and silicosis over a long period of time.
How could mining harm the environment and the society as a whole?
Along with acid mine drainage, the disposal of mine waste can also cause severe water pollution from toxic metals. The toxic metals commonly found in mine waste, such as arsenic and mercury, are harmful to the health of people and wildlife if they are released into nearby streams.
What are the problems of mining?
Mining is a dangerous profession. The traditional occupational hazards such as coal dust inhalation, damage to hearing due to the noise in a mine and chemical hazards still stand but the changing nature of mining has led to a raft of new issues. As mines are getting deeper, the risk of collapse has greatly increased.
Which type of mining is most damaging to the environment?
Sand mining and gravel mining creates large pits and fissures in the earth's surface. At times, mining can extend so deeply that it affects ground water, springs, underground wells, and the water table. The major threats of sand mining activities include channel bed degradation, river formation and erosion.
Is exploring abandoned mines illegal?
Although a mine may appear abandoned it does belong to someone and trespassing laws do apply. Anyone rescued from an abandoned mine may face criminal trespass charges. Tools, equipment, building materials, and other items on mine sites are not to be taken.
What is an environmental problem associated with abandoned coal mines?
The environmental challenges from coal mining include coal mine accidents, land subsidence, damage to the water environment, mining waste disposal and air pollution. These are either environmental pollution or landscape change.
Which of the following is an environmental problem associated with abandoned coal mines?
Abandoned mine drainage is water that is polluted from contact with mining activity, and normally associated with coal mining. It is a common form of water pollution in areas where mining took place in the past. Acid mine drainage is the formation and movement of highly acidic water rich in heavy metals.
What typically occurs when mines close down?
Where mines are very close to communities, sometimes the buildings get converted into other businesses, such as turning large process buildings into manufacturing facilities. When they are remote, the typical economic land use development is more likely recreational areas or green energy projects.
How can land be restored after strip mining?
After the coal is stripped, mine companies are legally required to do some restoration, which usually involves replacing the exploded soil and rock—rubble—covering it with a layer of topsoil, and seeding it with anything that will hold the ground together.
What environmental impacts are caused by both surface mining and underground mining?
Both surface mining and underground mining risk causing severe water pollution. Surface mining causes more destruction of land ecosystems than underground mining. Metals can be extracted from their ores in several different ways, two of which are carbon reduction and electrolysis.
How mining is a cause of pollution?
While mining practices have improved in recent years, mining activity can have a number of negative impacts on the environment, including: Contamination of ground and surface water supplies; Loss of biodiversity, and. Air pollution (release of microscopic dust particles that are harmful to human health).
What causes accidents in mines?
Mine accidents can have a variety of causes, including leaks of poisonous gases such as hydrogen sulphide or explosive natural gases, especially firedamp or methane, dust explosions, collapsing of mine stopes, toxic gases arising from mine fires, mining-induced seismicity, flooding, or general mechanical errors from …
What are the effects of mining on the environment?
Mining can pollute air and drinking water, harm wildlife and habitat, and permanently scar natural landscapes. Modern mines as well as abandoned mines are responsible for significant environmental damage throughout the West.
How does mining destroy the environment?
Mining: Environmental Impacts Mining can pollute air and drinking water, harm wildlife and habitat, and permanently scar natural landscapes. Modern mines as well as abandoned mines are responsible for significant environmental damage throughout the West.
How can mines damage the environment?
Across the world, mining contributes to erosion, sinkholes, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, significant use of water resources, dammed rivers and ponded waters, wastewater disposal issues, acid mine drainage and contamination of soil, ground and surface water, all of which can lead to health issues in local …