AdministratorWhat does tailings mean in mining?
Tailings are a by-product of mining. After ore containing an economically-recoverable commodity is mined from the earth, that commodity is extracted in a processing plant or mill. After the commodity of value is extracted from the ore material, the resultant waste stream is termed “tailings”.
What are tailings in mineral processing?
Tailings are the waste materials left after the target mineral is extracted from ore. They consist of: Crushed rock. Water.
What is a tailings used for?
Tailings ponds are used to store the waste made from separating minerals from rocks, or the slurry produced from tar sands mining. Tailings are sometimes mixed with other materials such as bentonite to form a thicker slurry that slows the release of impacted water to the environment.
What are slag and tailings in mining?
As nouns the difference between slag and tailings is that slag is whipped cream or slag can be apoplexy while tailings is the waste that remains after the minerals have been extracted from an ore by ore dressing; gangue, slimes.
How are tailings produced?
Tailings consist of ground rock and process effluents that are generated in a mine processing plant. Mechanical and chemical processes are used to extract the desired product from the run of the mine ore and produce a waste stream known as tailings.
What are tailings and why can they be a problem?
Tailings can reach immense proportions, appearing in the form of large hills (or sometimes ponds) on the landscape. Tailings deposited as large piles can cause a variety of environmental problems: Slumps, landslides. Tailing piles can be unstable, and experience landslides.
How are tailings generated?
Put simply, tailings are ground up rock minus the gold. Rocks mined from underground which contain gold are called ore. Processing involves crushing the ore into sand to liberate and recover the gold. What’s left over is called tailings.
What is the difference between overburden and tailings?
Overburden is distinct from tailings, the material that remains after economically valuable components have been extracted from the generally finely milled ore. Overburden is removed during surface mining, but is typically not contaminated with toxic components.
What are tailings made up of?
Tailings are a combination of the fine-grained (typically silt-sized, in the range from 0.001 to 0.6 mm) solid materials remaining after the recoverable metals and minerals have been extracted from mined ore, together with the water used in the recovery process.
How are tailings constructed?
Upstream construction begins with a starter dam. The tailings are then discharged into the facility where they form a tailings beach. The deposited tailings adjacent to the dam wall is allowed to drain and then can be compacted to be used to form the foundation for subsequent levels of the wall as the dam is raised.