Mass Movements and Mining

Question 1

What is a hazard associated with karst?

Answer 1

Infrastructure damage from ground subsidence. Its also common with mining and mass movements

Question 2

What is mass movement?

Answer 2

Weathered material moved downslope by gravity

Question 3

Where are landslides prevalent in the US?

Answer 3

Slide 3

Question 4

What is surface mining and deep mining?

Answer 4

Surface Mining (Strip, Open Pit, Mountaintop Removal) is used when mineral deposits are near the surface. Soil and rock overlying the deposit are removed to retrieve the deposit. Deep mining (underground) drills tunnels into the earth for extraction.

Question 5

What some problems/downfalls with underground mines?

Answer 5

• Methane (explosions)
• Mine blowouts
• Roof Falls
• Feasibility of extraction?
• Flooding of abandoned mines
• Loss of water from wells (due to subsidence)
• Cleanup not up to par (geographic impact both physical and human)

Question 6

What does strip mining use?

Answer 6

STRIP MINING uses some of the largest machines on earth, including bucket-wheel excavators which can move as much as 12,000 cubic meters of earth per hour. That’s about 8 Slusher Towers in an 8 hour day

Question 7

What are some of the downfalls/problems with strip mining?

Answer 7

• Huge amount of explosives used to remove overburden on a daily basis
• MAJOR environmental impacts (much more than underground operations)
• Alteration of the physical landscape permanently
• Reclamation often not sufficient
• Human development can take place over natural landscape (not necessarily bad in Appalachia)
• MAJOR controversy in a specific type of surface mining – mountaintop removal

Question 8

What is mountaintop removal?

Answer 8

Mountaintop Removal (MTR) is associated with coal mining in the Appalachians, especially WV and eastern Kentucky (top coal producers in the Appalachians).

Each state uses 1000 metric tons of explosives PER DAY on surface mining (USGS data).

Question 9

What are the stages for mountain top removal and how does it impact people and the environment?

Answer 9

Stage 1: Forest clearance by logging or burning
Stage 2: They blow up the overburden, then push it (“valley fill”) into nearby valleys where it buries natural streams (new legislation has stopped this and will change more)
Stage 3: Digging
Stage 4: Washing and disposal (The sludge from processing is held in “slurry ponds” by earthen or slate dams (can be unstable) and contains arsenic, lead, and other toxic chemicals)
Stage 5: Reclamation

Question 10

What is reclamation?

Answer 10

• Restructuring of the land after mining
• In an ideal world, the overburden is removed, coal is extracted, and the overburden is put back in the same topography of which it was removed
• Hydroseeding , Trees and Wetlands
• Virginia has a very good reclamation law, WV, and KY aren’t so good
• Reclaimed lands provide a major thing we don’t have a lot of in Appalachia: (think topographically)