Modeling the Process of Thawing of Tailings Dam Base Soils by Technological Waters

The storage of wastes from mining and mineral processing plants in the tailing dumps in regions with cold climates has a number of environmental consequences. Interactions of water with tailings in cold climates often lead to the thawing of permafrost soils, formation of technogenic thawing zones, and leakage of drainage waters. In the case of fault zones development in these areas, technogenic solutions are often filtered outside the tailing dump, promoting further development of filtration channels. In order to prevent leakage of solution from tailing dumps over time, it is necessary to determine the thawing zones and prevent the formation of filtration channels. In the case of the formation of a filtration channel, it is necessary to know what rate of rock thawing occurred near the formed filtration channel. In this study, for the tailing dump of a diamond mining factory, we calculated two exothermic effects: (1) due to physical heating of dump rock by filtering industrial water with temperatures from 2 to 15 °C through the rock; and (2) due to the chemical interaction of industrial water with the dam base rock. The amount of energy transferred by the water to the frozen and thawed rock over 10 years was calculated using thermophysical modeling and was 207.8 GJ and 8.39 GJ respectively. The amount of energy that the rock received during the ten-year period due to dissolution of the limestones and equilibration of solutions was calculated using thermodynamic modeling and was 0.37 GJ, which is 4.4% of the average amount of energy, expended on heating the thawed rock (8.39 GJ).

The Phonostate at the End of History: Language, Nation, and a Scheme for World Peace in Edwardian South Africa

This article tells the story of the eccentric and unknown writer Albert William Alderson (1880–1963), a British South African office clerk whose father had helped found the De Beers diamond mining corporation with Cecil Rhodes. Alderson, despite having no academic background, wrote two books and several pamphlets arguing that world peace could be achieved by eliminating all the languages in the world other than English; he buttressed this claim with an elaborate account of the causes of war taken from his reading in world history, but also with extraordinary statements on the relation of language to personal agency. Although Alderson's arguments cannot be taken seriously, they are illuminating as an example of “naïve” liberalism pushed to its limit; that is, as a case-study in heterodoxy comparable to Carlo Ginzburg's Menocchio. I conclude by suggesting that his work helped inspire one influential reader—C. K. Ogden, the founder of Basic English.

Kajian kerusakan lingkungan pada tambang intan berbasis pertambangan rakyat di Kecamatan Cempaka, Kalimantan Selatan

Abstrak. Penambangan intan di Kecamatan Cempaka telah ada sejak dulu dan dikelola langsung oleh masyarakat serta tergolong sebagai tambang rakyat yang berskala kecil. Keberadaan tambang intan memunculkan permasalahan pada lingkungan berupa kerusakan. Kerusakan yang ditimbulkan mencakup seluruh aspek seperti abiotik, biotik dan kultural. Untuk itu perlu dilakukan suatu kajian terkait bagaimana kerusakan yang ditimbulkan dari kegiatan tersebut. Tujuan pada penelitian ini berupa, (1) mengidentifikasi jenis kerusakan lingkungan akibat kegiatan pertambangan intan, (2) menganalisis tingkat kerusakan lingkungannya, (3) merumuskan strategi pengelolaan yang sesuai untuk kerusakan lingkungan akibat pertambangan intan tersebut. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian merupakan metode gabungan antara kuantitatif berupa skoring dan perhitungan kelas interval serta kualitatif berupa wawancara mendalam, yang mengacu pada kriteria dari Buku I Kerusakan Lahan Akses Terbuka Akibat Tambang Rakyat oleh Kementrian Lingkungan Hidup dan Kehutanan (KLHK) tahun 2015. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa identifikasi jenis kerusakan lingkungan memiliki kesesuaian dengan parameter yang ada pada ketentuan KLHK tahun 2015. Analisis tingkat kerusakan menunjukkan bahwa titik pengamatan 4 di Kelurahan Sungai Tiung menjadi titik dengan tingkat kerusakan yang berat. Perumusan strategi pengelolaan menunjukkan bahwa pengalihfungsian lokasi pertambangan menjadi tujuan wisata adalah upaya pengelolaan yang paling tepat. Abstract .Diamond mining in Cempaka Subdistrict existed for a long time ago and was handled by community groups and included as small-scale artisanal mining. The existence of diamond mining causes a problem to the environment like environmental damage. The damage caused covers all aspects such as abiotic, biotic, and cultural. Thus, it needs to carry out a study related to how these activities cause the damage. The purposes of the research are, (1) Identify the types of environmental damage, (2) analyze the level of environmental damage, (3) formulate the appropriate management strategies for environmental damage caused by diamond mining. The research method uses mix method between quantitative like scoring and calculation an interval class, and qualitative, with an in-depth interview, which references Book I Open Access to Land Damage due to Artisanal Mining by the Ministry of Environmental and Forestry 2015. The results showed that identifying the environmental damage type was in accordance with the parameters in 2015 of KLHK references. Analyze an environmental damage level shows the heavy damage level found in observation point 4 in Sungai Tiung. Formulation of a management strategy shows that mining sites' conversion to tourism destinations is the most appropriate.

Global Carbon Dioxide Removal Potential of Waste Materials From Metal and Diamond Mining

There is growing urgency for CO2 removal strategies to slow the increase of, and potentially lower, atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Enhanced weathering, whereby the natural reactions between CO2 and silicate minerals that produce dissolved bicarbonate ions are accelerated, has the potential to remove substantial CO2 on decadal to centennial timescales. The global mining industry produces huge volumes of fine wastes that could be utilised as feedstock for enhanced weathering. We have compiled a global database of the enhanced weathering potential of mined metal and diamond commodity tailings from silicate-hosted deposits. Our data indicate that all deposit types, notably mafic and ultramafic rock-hosted operations and high tonnage Cu-hosting deposits, have the potential to capture ~1.1–4.5 Gt CO2 annually, between 31 and 125% of the industry's primary emissions. However, current knowledge suggests that dissolution rates of many minerals are relatively slow, such that only a fraction (~3–21%) of this potential may be realised on timescales of <50 years. Field trials in mine settings are urgently needed and, if this prediction is confirmed, then methodologies for accelerating weathering reactions will need to be developed.

Complex Processing of Saponite Waste from a Diamond-Mining Enterprise

The solution of the sludge utilization problem and yield increase at processing plants have great importance today all over the world. Disasters associated with the tailings dams failures have madeus develop technologies of tailings sludge utilization as a commercial product, reducing the environmental damage on the regions of mineral extraction. This research aimed to provide new data, methods and an analytical approach to solve the saponite sludge accumulation problem on mining enterprises with silicate coagulant to increase the rate of cycle water clarification for the enrichment process and the recycling of sludge to reduce its hazardous effect. Samples were taken in the deposit located in the north of the European part of Russia, where diamond bearing ore contain montmorillonite minerals, mostly saponite, which is considered to be a perspective secondary product. The content of this mineral in the sludge is above 20 wt.%. Saponite is a clay mineral with the general chemical formula (Ca,Na)0.3(Mg, Fe2+)3(Si, Al)4O10(OH)2·4H2O. The mineral has high adsorption, ion exchange, and catalytic and filtration properties; due to the developed diffuse layer, saponite particles are highly stable in an aqueous medium—the resulting suspension is highly stable and has slow sedimentation. During the research, a positive effect on the sedimentation process of clay saponite particles was established, due to the introduction of a coagulant containing 70% tricalcium silicate, at a dosage of 2 g/dm3 coagulant; the degree of purification of water containing the saponite clay suspension is 99%. The condensed sediment after the thermal drying and with the limestone addition can be used again as a coagulant or secondary product with enhanced properties;therefore, the sludge will be processed, and not stored.