The hydraulic fill method of erecting dams was characterized. The main assumptions and practical aspects of sand spigot were discussed on the example of the spigot of the dam body of the Zelazny Most Tailings Storage Facility (TSF). The advantages and disadvantages of the method are discussed, and the directions of attempts to implement pipelines rising along with sedimenting waste are presented, which are to reduce earthworks.

The results of microbial oxidation under laboratory conditions of mixed pyrite mill tailings from power industry by Acidithiobacillusferrooxidans bacteria have been presented in the paper. The analysis of the dynamics of Fe(II)/Fe(III) concentration changes, oxidizing-reducing potential Eh and pH as well as phase analysis revealed that despite a significant activity of microorganisms in microbial oxidation process, the level of iron releasing from wastes is limited by the process of precipitation of low-soluble iron(III) compounds.

The safe environmental disposal of sulphide-rich copper/zine mine tailings is fast becoming a major economic factor in determining the profitability of mining operations. There have been new approaches and better technologies practised in the recent years which allow the mining industries to reduce and/or eliminate the environmental impacts of harmful mine tailings. One of these approaches is the use of high-density paste backfill (HDPB) which is consisting mainly of a mix of solid particles (with the cement) and water, containing between 70% and 85% by dry weight of solids. The increased use of HDPB has improved the reliability, and has reduced the cost of the preparation and transportation systems. This paper focuses on the potential environmental benefits of using the HDPB when tailings are acid generating, and also provides a case study conducted in an underground copper/zinc mine in northeast Turkey in order to illustrate these benefits.

The use of local bacteria is preferred in bioleaching as an environmental-friendly alternative technology in gold mining. In a preliminary study, rhizobacteria were isolated and cultured from three types of hyperaccumulator vegetation from the Ratatotok gold mine, Indonesia, namely Pteris vittata L., Syzygium aromaticum L., and Swietenia mahagoni Jacq. These rhizobacteria still need to be characterised and identified. This study is aimed to cover bacterial phenotypic characterisation, assessment of bacteria resistance to tailing, and identification of bacterial strains the exhibit the highest resistance to tailings. The assessment was carried out across a spectrum of tailing concentrations, selecting the three most robust strains for molecular identification. The process involved genotypic characterisation to determine the species name by analysing the 16S rRNA gene. The results reveal that the phenotypic characteristics of the bacteria isolates vary, but all of them are the indole acetic acid (IAA) hormone producers. The highest IAA producer is the isolate from the rhizosphere of S. aromaticum. Based on the genotypic characterisation test, three most resistant isolates to tailing stress are the following strains Pseudomonas aeruginosa (RTKP1) and Stenotrophomonas geniculata (RTKP2), both from the rhizosphere of P. vittata; as well as Bacillus cereus (RTKS) from the rhizosphere of S. aromaticum. These three strains need to be further tested for their bioleaching capability to recover gold from tailings. Additionally, this study recommends that gold recovery using biological agents can combine the role of hyperaccumulator plants in phytomining and rhizobacteria in bioleaching.

The subject of the research is one of the largest World’s mine tailings disposal sites, i.e. Żelazny Most in the Legnica-Głogów Copper Mining District (south-western Poland), where flotation tailings are poured out after copper ore treatment. The protective hydraulic barrier made of 46 vertical drainage wells was characterized and evaluated in view of reduction of major contaminants (Cl, Na, SO4, Ca) migrating from the facility to its foreground. The efficiency of groundwater protection was determined on the basis of a new approach. In applied method the loads of characteristic and commonly recognizable compounds, i.e. salt (NaCl) and gypsum (CaSO4) were calculated, instead their chemical components. The temporal and spatial variability of captured main contaminants loads as well as its causes are discussed. The paper ends with the results of efficiency analyses of the barrier and with respect to the predicted increase in contaminant concentrations in the pulp poured out to the tailings site.

Each year, mine and mill operations generate enormousamounts of two waste types – fine-grained tailings andcoarse-grained waste rocks. Fine-grained tailings are either discharged in slurry form to surface tailings dams ordelivered in cementitious form to underground mine stopes as backfilling, while coarse-grained rocks are typicallystored by depositing as a dry material in large dumps. The engineering design of surface tailings dams orunderground mine stopes is often controlled by the high compressibility and low shear strength characteristics offine-grained tailings. Cemented paste backfill CPB indicating saturated, fine-grained backfills can undergo majorconsolidation settlement during early curing stages. Thus, a better understanding of the rate and magnitude of bothdifferential and total settlement of CPB cured under stressis essential for a proper backfill geotechnical design. Theconsolidation parameters of CPB can be determined from an improved lab setup called CUAPS (curing underapplied pressure system). This setup is capable of simulating the CPB placement and curing conditions, andmeasuring the consolidation parameters of CPB cured under effective stresses ranging between 0.5 and 400 kPa.In this study, a series of one-dimensional consolidation tests were conducted on CPB samples allowing forexamination of the effects of binder type and rate as well as curing time on the compression properties (e.g.,coefficient of consolidationcv, compression indexCc, and recompression indexCr) and the final geotechnicalindex properties (e.g., void ratioef, water contentwf, and degree of saturationSf). Results showed that as the bindercontent increases, the initial resistance to consolidation increases. Thecvvalue decreases over the course of timedue to evolution of the CPB microstructure generated by the hydration process.

A large amount of solid and liquid wastes produced by mines and mills each year needs to be managed and minimized by alternative disposal methods like paste and dry stack. Increasingly strict environmental legislation and cost competitiveness also dictate the utilization of technically suitable, economically viable, environmentally acceptable, and socially responsible techniques. This paper reviews some of these techniques that could potentially reduce large volumes of mine wastes (with a focus on mine tailings and waste rocks) without causing significant environmental hazards. The new emerging techniques such as environmental desulphurization, covers built with sulphide-free tailings, co-disposal of tailings and waste rocks, geotextile tube dewatering, and use of tailings in the cement production and road construction for both industrial and environmental purposes are discussed in terms of waste minimization. The existing methods and approaches for efficient waste treatment and disposal are also discussed in this review paper.

During the geological prospecting works conducted in 2013 on Bangka Island (Indonesia), high monazite content was identified in the wastes produced during processing of cassiterite deposits. Monazite, among 250 known minerals containing REE , is one of the most important minerals as primary source of REE .The monazite content in this waste is up to 90.60%. The phase composition of the investigated tailing proves that the sources of minerals accompanying the placer sediments tin mineralization are granitoids. The tailing is composed of numerous ore minerals, including monazite, xenotime, zircon, cassiterite, malayaite, struverite, aeschynite-(Y), ilmenite, rutile, pseudorutile and anatase. Monazite grains belong to the group of cerium monazite. Its grains are characterized by high content of Ce2O3 27.12–33.50 w t.%, La2O3 up to 15.46 w t.%, Nd2O3 up to 12.87%. The total REE 2O3 + Y content ranges from 58.18 to 65.90 wt.%. Monazite grains observations (SEM -BSE) revealed the presence of porous zones filled with fine phases of minerals with U and Th content. The radiation intensity of 232Th is ATh = 340 ± 10 Bq and 238AU = 114 ± 2 Bq. High content of monazite and other REE minerals indicates that tailing is a very rich, potential source of REE s, although the presence of radioactive elements at the moment is a technological obstacle in their processing and use. The utilization of monazite bearing waste in the Indonesian Islands can be an important factor for development and economic activation of this region and an example of the good practice of circular economy rules.

The gold recovery from cyanidation tailings was only 4.01% with the general flotation process, the surface analyses of flotation products were performed, and the results showed that the poor gold recovery with general flotation process was due to the passive films covering the surface of the gold bearing pyrite. These films are mainly hydrophilic hydroxides of Ca, Fe and Mg, at the same time, the depression of CN– to pyrite flotation in the flotation slurry was also a main contributing factor. With the surface repair regeneration procedures, it was proven that sulfuric acid pretreatment plays a dominant role in the removing and cleaning of passive films, while destroying free cyanides in the slurry. Sodium carbonate was then used as a buffering pH modifier and as a slurry dispersant after sulfuric acid pretreatment. The gold recovery was as high as 93.41%, compared to the original gold recovery of 4.01%.

Between Expressionism and Sperimentalism: Mario Monicelli and Pasquale Festa Campanile – The purpose of this study is to focus on the phenomenon of linguistic experimentalism in Italian cinema and to analyse the languages appearing in four films: medieval Italian, a mixture of Italian dialects, Latin and barbaric languages, in “The Incredible Army of Brancaleone” and “Brancaleone at the Crusades” (directed by M. Monicelli) as well as the prehistoric language in such films as “When Women Had Tails” and “When Women Lost Their Tails” (directed by P. Festa Campanile).

Approximately 30 million tons of tailings are being stored each year at the KGHMs Zelazny Most Tailings Storage Facility (TSF). Covering an area of almost 1.6 thousand hectares, and being surrounded by dams of a total length of 14 km and height of over 70 m in some areas, makes it the largest reservoir of post-flotation tailings in Europe and the second-largest in the world. With approximately 2900 monitoring instruments and measuring points surrounding the facility, Zelazny Most is a subject of round-the-clock monitoring, which for safety and economic reasons is crucial not only for the immediate surroundings of the facility but for the entire region. The monitoring network can be divided into four main groups: (a) geotechnical, consisting mostly of inclinometers and VW pore pressure transducers, (b) hydrological with piezometers and water level gauges, (c) geodetic survey with laser and GPS measurements, as well as surface and in-depth benchmarks, (d) seismic network, consisting primarily of accelerometer stations. Separately a variety of different chemical analyses are conducted, in parallel with spigotting processes and relief wells monitorin. This leads to a large amount of data that is difficult to analyze with conventional methods. In this article, we discuss a machine learning-driven approach which should improve the quality of the monitoring and maintenance of such facilities. Overview of the main algorithms developed to determine the stability parameters or classification of tailings are presented. The concepts described in this article will be further developed in the IlluMINEation project (H2020).

One of the shortcomings of the analysis of subfossil Cladocera (water flee) remains is that preservation of remains is selective. Of Daphnia spp. which are very common in zooplankton assemblages of lakes, usually only postabdominal claws and ephippia are found. In the present paper I describe Daphnia shell margins and some tail spines from the Holocene sediments of a lake in southern Finland where the margins were much more abundant than the postabdominal claws, indicating that postabdominal claws may be underrepresented. Daphnia claws, shell margins and tail spines were found also in surface samples of 17 Finnish lakes and thus the abundance of tail spines could be compared with that of postabdominal claws. The results showed that in most cases the tail spines are more abundant than postabdominal claws and may give a closer estimate of the true abundance of Daphnia. However, in some lakes claws were clearly more frequent than tail spines. Apparently, there are differences in preservation of different types of Daphnia remains between lakes, possibly connected with water chemistry. Overall, the results indicate that probably Daphnia remains are always underrepresented in lake sediments.

During the extraction of nuclear raw materials, rare earths and other elements from ores containing uranium and thorium, various types of radioactive waste and some recovery tailings are generated. Mining and ore processing residues, i.e. waste and tailings, present a variety of problems related to waste management. Their bulky structure prevents their disposal underground, and their long radioactive half-life causes various problems with regard to their long-term storage. As a matter of fact, the secondary presence of nuclear raw materials together with other minerals requires compliance with hazardous waste procedures in the storage of waste containing nuclear raw materials after the recovery of these main minerals. It may be possible in the future to recover these nuclear raw materials from stockpiles of stored mine waste. The prospect of imbalances in the global uranium supply and demand increases the importance of secondary sources contributing to the global uranium supply. The increasing importance of secondary sources of nuclear raw materials suggests that more attention should be paid to the recovery of these resources together with primary minerals than in the past. In world literature, there is no review article that describes and discusses the waste management of nuclear raw materials in mining and mineral processing together with the opportunities and obstacles for their recovery. Considering this deficiency in the literature, in this study, the properties of waste and tailings resulting from mining and ore preparation activities of nuclear raw materials are explained, the difficulties encountered are mentioned, and solution suggestions are presented by making use of the literature on the recovery of tailings and waste management.