Geology and Mining slides by Kiersten Lippmann

Geology and Mining Environmental Issues
Spring 2017
Prepared by Kiersten Lippmann 2017

Happy happy
miners….
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=HI0x0KYChq4 (2:30 min)
• The good ole’ days?
• (Snow White movie dated 1937)
• When men were dwarfs and
women were Snow White and
diamonds studded the coal
mines…

Cell Phones and Mining for Tantalum
• Cell phones contain a tiny amount of
tantalum
• Found in Congo
• Tantalum also found in computer chips, DVD
players, game consoles and digital cameras,
capacitors (circuit boards)
• Tantalum highly heat resistant and conducts
electricity
• Usually found in the ore “coltan”
• Mined by enslaved or very poor laborers in
Congo, resulted in massive human rights
violations, rape, child abuse, increased
spread of AIDS, ecological havoc

Mining for
tantalum (Coltan)
Cont…
v=aF-sJgcoY20 (4 mins,
ENOUGHProject, 2009)
• “Conflict Minerals”
• Congo’s mineral riches have been
exploited by foreign nations
throughout recent history, but the
people remain in poverty/civil
war/enslaved.

Virunga National Park
(Congo) and Gorillas
• Slightly smaller in size than Yellowstone
• Contains unparalleled biodiversity, nearly half of all Africa’s
species
• Habitats include active volcanoes, lava plains, tropical
forests, marshes, savannas, glaciers, mountain snowfields
• Rare mountain gorillas, chimps, okapi, lions, hippos….
• Park is recovering after civil war caused death of many
animals, including highly endangered gorillas
• Future… oil development, could cause further damage to
Virunga.
• More reading on Congo “Poisonwood Bible” Barbara
Kingsolver and “Things Fall Apart”, and Michael Faye’s
journey across Africa HERE

This is an Okapi….

Conflict minerals,
cont…
• Congo not the only source of conflict
minerals
• Black markets in Brazil, Columbia, and
Venezuela in the northern Amazon
jungle
• Armed gangs use women, children,
indigenous people to mine and
smuggle mineral
• Afghanistan recently discovered
mineral reserves as well… likely a
future source of conflict.

Conflict Minerals of the Galaxy
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZleU1WXLqDs
• Seems familiar….

Conflict- free
Minerals
• Industry groups, Gov’t, NGOs,
creating a certification system for
conflict-free coltan
• US Law mandates that
manufacturers report the origin of
coltan in their products
• Hopefully will satisfy demand for
minerals, but protect people and
ecosystems that provide them.
• I tried to find conflict-free phones
for sale at the major sites, Verizon,
Apple, Samsung. I even asked
customer reps. THEY DO NOT
CARRY CONFLICT-FREE PHONES!

Geology Basics and Plate Tectonics
• Geology-study of Earths physical features,
processes and history
• Plates move about the surface of earth like
skin of an orange
• Plates move roughly 1- 6 in per year
• Form and reform continents influencing
climate and evolution throughout Earth’s
history.
• Twice have fused to form one super
continent
• Last time all landmasses were fused 225
years ago into “Pangaea”

Tectonics produce Earth’s
landforms
• Plate tectonics build mountains
• Shape geography of oceans, islands, and
continents
• Earthquakes and volcanoes
• Coltan mining areas in Congo are along the
western edge of Africa’s Great Rift Valley,
regions where Africa is slowly pulling aport
• Huge lakes in valley floor

Topography, plate tectonics,
and climate
• Topography created by tectonics shapes
climate
• Alters rainfall, wind, ocean currents, heating
and cooling
• Weathering and erosion
• Ability of plants and animals to inhabit
different regions
• Tectonics alters life’s evolution by changing
climates and conditions

The Rock Cycle alter Rock
• Over geologic time, rocks and the minerals that comprise
rock are heated, melted, cooled, broken down, and
reassembled
• Rock cycle
• Rock: solid aggregation of minerals
• Mineral: solid element or inorganic compound with
crystal structure, specific chemical composition, and
distinct physical properties
• Type of rock affects soil properties and thus plant and
animal communities
• Understand rock cycle important for mineral resources,
conservation of soils, fossil fuels, other natural resources

Igneous Rock
• Rock melts at high temperatures
• Forms liquid called magma
• Once cooled at Earth surface magma
turns to lava
• Lava cooled to solid state is called
igneous rock

Sedimentary Rock
• All exposed rock weathers with time
• Wind, water, freezing, and thawing
• Through weathering and erosion, particles of rocks
are formed- sediments
• Sediments accumulate over time, causing pressure
on layers below
• Sedimentary Rock is formed from the pressure and
dissolved minerals that bind particles together
• Fossils are found in sedimentary layers
• Fossil fuels also found here
• Layers are used to assign dates to fossils

Metamorphic Rock
• Rock under great heat or pressure may alter it
form become ‘metamorphic rock’
• Generally occurs deep underground

Geologic and Natural Hazards
• Earthquakes
• Volcanic Eruptions
• Caused by tectonics
• “Ring of Fire” Pacific volcanoes are along the
25,000 mile arc along a fault system
• Most volcanoes and earthquakes in the world
occur here
• Johnny Cash likes to sing about it

Earthquakes- movements at
plate boundarie and faults
• Along tectonic plate boundaries, earth relieves
built up pressure in fits and starts
• Earthquakes
• Can be severe but most are barely perceptible
• Worse in loose soils or cities
• Earthquake prone areas have specially
engineered buildings to bend with the shaking
• California, Japan, Alaska, Indonesia…

Volcanoes
• Arise from rifts, subduction zones, or hotspots
• Where molten rock, hot gas, or ash erupts through Earth’s surface
• Also at hotspots where plugs of molten rock from lava erupts
through crust
• Hawaii
• Mt. Kilauea in Hawaii has been erupting continuously since 1983!
• Sudden eruption – pyroclastic flow- fast moving cloud of toxic gas,
ash, and rock fragments that race down slopes enveloping
everything in its path
• Ash blocks sunlight
• Large eruptions depress temperatures
• 1915 eruption of Mount Tambora was “year without a summer”

Pyroclastic flow
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=Cvjwt9nnwXY

Landslides are a form of mass
wasting
• Landslides occur when large amounts of rock or soil
collapse and flow downhill
• Severe, sudden form of mass wasting, where soil, rock
move downslope due to gravity
• Natural
• Caused by human land use practices that expose and
loosen soil
• Often triggered by heavy rains
• Can be massive and deadly, as in 1998 in Nicaragua and
Hondorus killed 11,000 people
• Mudsides when volcanic eruptions melt snow, called lahars
very dangerous.
• A lahar in 1985 in Columbia killed 21,000

Oso Landslide,
Washington
State
v=huNxZGmsUbE
• A portion of an unstable hill
collapsed, sending mud and debris
to the south across the North Fork
of the Stillaguamish River,
engulfing a rural neighborhood,
and covering an area of
approximately 1 square mile (2.6
km2). Forty-three people were
killed and 49 homes and other
structures destroyed

Tsunamis can follow earthquakes, volcanoes,
or landslides
• Tsunami triggered when earthquakes, volcanoes or mudslides
displace huge amounts of ocean water instantaneously and trigger a
tsunami
• Tsunami- immense swell, or wave, of water that can travel thousands
of miles across oceans
• 2004 Tsunami in Sumatra
• 2011 tsunami in Japan, killed 19,000 people, $300 in economic
impacts, and meltdown of Fukishima nuclear power plant
• Coastal vegetation helps lesson impacts of tsunami

Boxing Day Tsunami
Thailand, 2004
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9Ua
emMtCzE
• The earthquake was caused when the
Indian Plate was subducted by the Burma
Plate and triggered a series of devastating
tsunamis along the coasts of most
landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean,
killing 230,000 people in fourteen
countries, and inundating coastal
communities with waves up to 30 metres
(100 ft) high. It was one of the deadliest
natural disasters in recorded history.
Indonesia was the hardest-hit country,
followed by Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand.

Japanese
Tsunami 2011
v=Gclg7pW4I1o&index=1&list=PLa
X9GGu-
BsQQjcHTmo33MSXLoHjR0emOi
• Nearly 16,000 now confirmed
dead
• Meltdown of Fukushima power
plant

1958 Lituya Bay
megatsunami
• Earthquake and rockslides caused a
megatsunami that destroyed vegetation at a
height of 1,722 feet

Humans can
worsen or lesson
impacts of natural
hazards
• Heavy rains and flooding
• Coastal erosion
• Wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes
• Although “natural” hazards, the
magnitude of their impacts
depends on choices we make

How we worsen impacts of natural hazards
• As population grows, more people live in areas prone
to natural disasters
• Many chose to live in places that are attractive but
prone to hazards
-coastlines- tsunamis and erosion
-mountainous areas- volcanoes and mass wasting
• Engineer landscapes in ways that increase severity of
natural hazards like damming and diking rivers,
suppressing wildfires, clear cutting, mining practices
increase risk of mass wasting.
• Global warming alters precipitation, increase risks of
drought, fire, flooding, and mudslides.
• Global warming and rising sea levels, increased
flooding and coastal erosion.

Lessen impacts of
natural hazards
• Thoughtful use of technology,
engineering and policy, informed by
understanding of geology and ecology
• Earthquake-resistant buildings
• Early warning systems for hurricanes,
tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes
• Conserve coastal forests, reefs, salt
marshes protect against tsunamis and
coastal erosion
• Better forestry and mining practices
to help prevent landslides
• Zoning regs to discourage
development in areas prone to
hazards
• Address emission of greenhouse
gases

Earth’s Mineral Resources
• Geologic processes influence distribution of rocks and
minerals in the lithosphere and their availability to us
• Mining- extraction of any resource that is
nonrenewable on the timescale of our society
• We can mine minerals, fossil fuels, or groundwater
• When referring to minerals, mining is the systematic
removal of rock, soil, or other material for the purpose
of extracting minerals of economic interest
• Most minerals of interest are widely spread and in low
concentration
• Miner prospect site first for high concentrations before
mining

We use mine minerals
extensively
• In 2013 the average American
consumed over 38,000 lb of new
minerals and fuels every year
• At current rate, a child born today
will use over 2.2 million lb during
his/her lifetime
• More than half of annual mineral
and fuel use is from coal, oil, natural
gas
• Much of remaining use is sand,
gravel and stone in buildings, roads,
bridges, parking lots
• High potential for recycling and re-
use of materials

Metals are extracted from ores
• Metal- a type of chemical element that typically
is lustrous, opaque, malleable, and conducts
heat and electricity
• Most metals are not pure, but are found in ore,
a mineral, or grouping of minerals from which
we extract metals
• Copper, iron, lead, gold, aluminum among
many economically viable metals we extract
from mined ore
• Tantalum of conflict minerals fame, is used in
electronic components of computers, cell
phones, video game consoles and other devices
• Comes from the mineral tantalite, which is
often found with the mineral columbite within
the ore called coltan

We process metals after
mining ore
• After being extracted most minerals need to
be processed
• After ores are mined, rock is crushed and
pulverized, and desired metals are isolated by
chemical or physical means
• Processed to purify metals
• Coltan- processing facilities use acid solvents
to separate tantalite from columbite
• Metals fused to another metal or non metal
substance to form an alloy
• Steel is an alloy with strength and malleability
formed by smelting which heats ore beyond
its melting point and combines it with other
metals or chemicals

Processing minerals exerts
environmental impacts
• Most methods are energy and water intensive
• Extracting metals from ore emits pollution, especially smelting
• Soil and water commonly polluted by tailings- portions of ore left
over after metals have been extracted
• Tailings leach heavy metals as well as chemicals from extraction
process
• Cyanide to extract gold from ore
• Sulfuric acid to extract copper
• Toxic slurries of tailings stores in surface impoundments
• Impoundments often leak
• 2000 break of coal tailings impoundment in Kentucky released
250 to 300 million gallons of coal soil blackening streams, killing
aquatic wildlife, affecting drinking water

Mining nonmetallic minerals and fuels
• Phosphates, limestone, salt potash, other
minerals
• Gemstones are treasured for their rarity and
beauty
• Diamonds prized
• “Blood diamonds” and diamond trade has
prolonged and funded wars in Angola, Sierra
Leone, Liberia, and elsewhere
• People exploited for mine labor, sell diamonds
for profit
• Mine substances for fuel- Uranium ore for
nuclear power
• Mine coal
• Mine other fossil fuels

Mining methods and
their impacts
• Mining is an important industry that
provides jobs and revenue
• Mining supplies raw materials for
products we use daily
• But… mining has environmental and social
costs
• Minerals of interest make up a small
portion of rock in mined area
• Huge amounts of materials are removed
in order to obtain minerals
• Mining impacts huge swathes of land
• Several mining methods are used

Strip mining removes
surface layers of soil and
rock
• Strip mining removes layers of surface
soil and rock (called overburden) from
large areas to expose the resource
• Used when the resource occurs in
shallow horizontal deposits near the
surface
• After resource is extracted,
overburden fills in the strip, and miner
proceed to adjacent strip of land to
continue
• Coal, oil sands, sometimes sand, gravel

Strip mining
cont…
• Economically efficient
• Obliterates natural communities
over a large area
• Pollutes water through acid mine
drainage- where sulfide minerals in
exposed rock surfaces react with
oxygen and rainwater to produce
sulfuric acid
• Sulfuric acid run-off leaches heavy
metals and other metals from the
rocks, many of them toxic
• Affects fish and aquatic creatures,
and pollutes drinking water and
water used for irrigation

Subsurface mining- working
underground
• Used when resource is in concentrated pockets or seams deep
underground, and when earth allows for safe tunneling
• Shafts are extended deep into the ground, and networks of
tunnels are dug or blasted out to follow deposits of the mineral
• Miners remove the resource and ship it to the surface
• Used for coal, zinc, lead, nickel, tin, gold, copper, uranium
• Diamonds, phosphate, salt and potash
• Also generates acid mine drainage
• Most dangerous form of mining, fatal accidents not unusual
• 1,000 miners dead in China in 2013 alone
• Toxic fumes and coal dust lead to fatal black lung

Open Pit mining
• Creates immense holes in the ground
• Used when mineral is spread widely and evenly
throughout a rock formation
• Or when earth is unsuitable for tunneling
• Open pit involves digging a giant hole and
removing the desired ore, along with waste rock
around the ore
• Huge! World’s largest is Bingham Canyon Mine
near Salt Lake City, Utah- 2.5 miles across and .75
miles deep
• Gigantic trucks and conveyer systems carry out half
a million tons of ore and water rock a day

Open pit mining, cont…
• Used to extract copper, iron, gold, diamonds, coal and
others
• Also clay gravel, sand, and stone (similar pits for stone
like marble are called quarries)
• Open pit mines are so large because huge volumes of
waste rock need to be removed to extract relatively
small amounts of ore, which contain even smaller
traces of minerals
• Huge size means habitat loss and aesthetic degradation
• Abandoned pits fill with groundwater, which becomes
toxic due to sulfuric acid runoff
• Acidic water can harm wildlife and aquifers

Proposed Pebble Mine in
Alaska
• Pebble mine is at the headwaters of Iliamna Lake, off
Bristol Bay in Alaska home to the largest Sockeye salmon
runs in the world
• Pristine wilderness area
• copper, gold, molybdenum
• Developers plan to hold back toxic mine waste behind
earthern dams which are bound to fail in this earthquake
prone region
• Damage to salmon and ecosystem is inevitable
• Project on hold in 2013, but Trump is putting it back on the
table
• Pebble deposit is mostly low-grade ore, so would involve
massive amounts of earth removal to get to it

Pebble mine, cont…

Placer mining uses running
water to isolate minerals
• Metals and gems accumulate in riverbed deposits, carried
by flowing water
• Miners sift through materials using running water to
separate lightweight gravel and mud from heavier minerals
• Placer mining used by Congo’s coltan miners searching for
high density tantanlite
• Congo’s miners using methods similar to methods during
the Klondike gold rush
• Still used in areas of Alaska and California
• Environmentally destructive because large amounts of
debris washed into streams, destroying fish habitat
• Erosion, destruction of plant communities

Mountaintop Mining
• Mountaintop removal mining used when a resource
occurs in underground seams near the tops of ridges or
mountains
• Several hundred vertical feet of mountaintop removed
• Primarily used for coal in Appalachia
• Mountains forests are clear-cut, timber sold, topsoil
removed, and rock is blasted
• Overburden placed back on mountain after, but is
unstable and usually takes up more volume than the
original rock, so waste rock is dumped into valleys
“valley filling”
• Blasted away an area the size of Delaware and buried
2,000 miles of streams

Impacts of Mountaintop
Mining on Communities
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQdD-3wWQeU
(Earthjustice, 3:34)
• Dumping debris into valleys degrades and destroys massive
areas of habitat, clogs streams and rivers, pollutes
waterways with acid drainage
• Results in erosion, mudslides and flash floods
• Appalachian forests have rich biodiversity, and are
destroyed
• Social and health impacts – blasts from mines crack houses
and foundations, loose rocks tumble into yard, flooding
• Coal dust causes respiratory illness, birth defects, lung
cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, hypertension,
pulmonary disorders, mortality

Mountaintop removal mining
and Clean Water Act
• Mining may violate the Clean Water Act because
runoff contains high levels of salts and toxic metals
that degrade water quality
• Hundreds of permits issued prior, but in 2010 EPA
announced new guidelines that prohibit valley fill
unless strict measures of water quality can be
attained
• In 2011, EPA revoked permit of mining operation in
W. Virginia citing the new guidelines
• 2014 court ruling backed EPAs decision, permits
across Appalachia are being re-examined

Solution mining
• Deposit deep underground and can be dissolved in
liquid
• A narrow borehole drilled to reach deposit, and
water, acid or another liquid injected into borehole
to leach resource from rock and dissolve into liquid
• Solution is then sucked out
• Used for salt, lithium, boron, bromine, magnesium,
potash, copper, uranium
• Less environmental impact, less disturbance
• Impacts from leaking of acids into groundwater,
and contamination of aquifers with heavy metals
or uranium

Ocean mining
• Ocean holds many minerals
• Magnesium, salts from seawater
• Ocean floor nodules of magnesium, 1.5 trillion
tons worth in Pacific alone
• Logistical difficulties have limited ocean
mining so far
• Likely many minerals are found under oceans

Restoration or Reclamation
of Mine sites
• Mining companies are required to restore, or reclaim surface-
mined sites following mining
• Aim of reclamation is to restore site to pre-mining condition
• Companies are required to remove buildings, replace overburden,
fill in shafts, and replant the areas with vegetation
• 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act
• Companies must post bond so if they fail to restore site, gov’t has
money to do so
• Even restored sites have severe and lasting damage such as soil
and water damage from acid drainage
• High levels of acids or metals make it difficult to restore native
plants

1872 law still guides mining
policy
• General Mining Act of 1872 encourages people and companies to prospect
for minerals on federally owned lands
• Allows and US citizen, domestic company, or foreign company with
permission to do business in US to stake a claim on any plot of public land
open to mining
• Person or company gains sole rights to minerals from the area
• Claim-holder patent the claim (buy the land) for just $5 an acre!
• Law requires no payment of any kind to public, despite profits
• Supporters say we need to encourage domestic mining
• Critics say the policy give away valuable public resources for next to
nothing
• Law has not yet been amended despite many attempts
• Eg. 2009 Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act, filed to get out of
Congress

Towards Sustainable
Mineral Use
• Minerals are non-renewable, and in finite
supply
• Reserves of tantalum will last about 170
years at today’s rate of consumption
• If demand increases, could run out faster
• If everyone consumed at US rates, would last
only 13 more years!
• Indium is dwindling, used for LCD screens
• Gone in 30 years
• Platinum also dwindling in supply used for
fuel cells and catalytic converters- but usually
recycled at high rates

Discovery of new reserves
• With discoveries, number of years left for a resource
increases
• 2010 discovery of mineral riches of Afghanistan, iron, copper,
niobium, lithium worth over $1 trillion
• Of course, lessons from Congo and Amazon tell us this may
not make Afghanistan wealthy
• New extraction technologies, make inaccessible reserves
accessible
• New technologies may increase demand for minerals, for
example cell phones and tantalum
• Changes in consumption change demand, along with
economic conditions
• Recycling allows us to re-use minerals and reduce mining

Making mineral use more sustainable
• Recycling reduces issues associated with
finite supply and environmental damage
• Currently, 35% of metals in US are recycled
• Car battery recycling supplies 80% of the
lead we need for new products
• 33% of copper comes from recycling
• Recycling decreases energy use substantially,
recycling steel requires much less energy
than creating new steel from ore
• 40% of aluminum in US is recycled
• It take 20 X more energy to create Al from
new ore than recycled

Recycle metals from e-waste
• The 1.7 billion cell phones sold each year contain about 200
chemical compounds and close to a dollar’s worth of
precious metals
• An estimated 500 million cell phones are currently lying
inactive around the US
• A recycled phone may be refurbished and sold to
developing country
• Or dismantled in a developing country and sold for parts
• Only about 10% of phones are recycled today
• Recycling reduces demand for virgin ore and decreases
pressures on people and ecosystems in Africa and other
areas where coltan is mined

Conclusion
• Geology and plate tectonics are important because they
shape Earth’s terrain and form foundation for living systems
• Natural hazards are generated by geological phenomena
including earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, tsunamis
• We depend on a diversity of minerals and mine them by
various methods depending on how they are distributed
• Economically efficient methods of mining generate wealth
but have massive environmental impacts
• Restoration methods help minimize environmental and
social impacts of mining
• We can prolong access to minerals and reduce energy use
and environmental impacts by recycling and sustainable
use

As promised… Tasmanian Tiger/Thylacine
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odswge5onw
Y

Geology and Mining slides by Kiersten Lippmann

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Geology and Mining slides by Kiersten Lippmann