The act and process of mining natural resources has yielded great economic and technological growth for mankind. Although a necessity for our civilization, mining has extensive environmental impacts due to the byproduct of mine waste, also known as tailings. Mine waste is material rendered economically invaluable as a result of the mining ore. The presence of tailings can have negative impacts on the environment and public health. Current practices to clean up these tailing sites are either expensive, environmentally intrusive, or inefficient. Utilizing the sun’s energy through the use of plant processes may be an effective method of reamidiating the damages of mine tailings. Also known as phytoremediation, this method uses the free energy produced by the sun to drive plant processes which extract heavy metal and mineral concentration in mine waste that make it hazardous. This method could have the potential to remediate sites in a cost effective and environmentally safe manner as opposed to chemical based remediation systems. Based out of the field site of Tonopah, Nevada, silver mine tailings from this site will be used to assess the implications of phytoremediation by initial studies of soil nutrients, geochemistry, mineralogy and soil and geotechnical properties.
Authors: Kinshuk Tella and Keira Johnson
Faculty Advisors: Mark Krekeler, Department of Mathematics and Physical Sciences, and Claire McLeod, Department of Geology & Environmental Earth Science
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