The impact of mining on the environment. Impact of open pit mining on the environment

During the extraction and processing of minerals, there is a large geological cycle in which they are involved various systems. As a result, there is a great impact on the ecology of the mining region, and such an impact entails negative consequences.

The scale of mining is large - per inhabitant of the Earth, up to 20 tons of raw materials are mined per year, of which less than 10% goes into the final product, and the remaining 90% is waste. In addition, during production, there is a significant loss of raw materials of about 30 - 50%, which indicates the uneconomical nature of some types of production, especially open method.

Russia is a country with a widely developed mining industry, has deposits of the main raw materials. Questions negative impact extraction and processing of raw materials are very relevant, since these processes affect all spheres of the Earth:

• lithosphere;
• atmosphere:
• water;
• animal world.

Impact on the lithosphere

Any mining method provides for the extraction of ore from the earth's crust, which leads to the formation of cavities and voids, the integrity of the crust is violated, and fracturing increases.

As a result, the likelihood of collapses, landslides, and faults in the area adjacent to the mine increases. Anthropogenic landforms are being created:

• careers;
• dumps;
• waste heaps;
• ravines.

Such atypical forms are big sizes, the height can reach 300 m, and the length is 50 km. The embankments are formed from the waste of processed raw materials, trees and plants do not grow on them - these are just kilometers of unsuitable territory.

During mining rock salt, during the enrichment of raw materials, halite wastes are formed (three to four tons of waste per ton of salt), they are solid and insoluble, and rainwater carries them into rivers, which are often used to provide drinking water population of nearby cities.

It is possible to solve environmental problems associated with the occurrence of voids by filling ravines and recesses in the earth's crust formed as a result of mining with waste and processed raw materials. It is also necessary to improve mining technology in order to reduce the excavation of waste rock, this can greatly reduce the amount of waste.

Many rocks contain several types of minerals, so it is possible to combine the extraction and processing of all ore components. This is not only economically beneficial, but also has a positive effect on environment.

Another negative impact associated with mining is the contamination of nearby agricultural soils. This happens during transportation. Dust scatters for many kilometers and settles on the surface of the soil, on plants and trees.

Many substances can release toxins, which then enter the food of animals and humans, poisoning the body from the inside. Often around magnesite deposits that are actively developed, there is a wasteland within a radius of up to 40 km, the soil changes the alkaline-acid balance, and plants stop growing, and nearby forests die.

As a solution to this problem, environmentalists propose to place raw material processing enterprises near the extraction site, which will also reduce transportation costs. For example, to locate power plants near coal deposits.

And, finally, the extraction of raw materials significantly depletes the earth's crust, the reserves of substances decrease every year, the ores become less saturated, this contributes to large volumes of extraction and processing. The result is an increase in waste volumes. The solution to these problems can be the search for artificial substitutes for natural substances and their economical consumption.

Mining of salt

Impact on the atmosphere

Enormous environmental problems are exerted by mining on the atmosphere. As a result of the processes of primary processing of mined ores, large volumes are emitted into the air:

• methane,
• oxides
• heavy metals,
• sulfur,
• carbon.

The created artificial waste heaps are constantly burning, releasing harmful substances into the atmosphere - carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide. Such atmospheric pollution leads to an increase in the level of radiation, a change in temperature indicators and an increase or decrease in precipitation.

During mining, a large amount of dust is released into the air. Every day, up to two kilograms of dust falls on the territories adjacent to the quarries, as a result, the soil remains buried under a half-meter layer for many years, and often forever, and, naturally, loses its fertility.

The solution to this problem is the use of modern equipment that reduces emissions harmful substances, as well as the use of a mine method of extraction instead of an open one.

Impact on the aquatic environment

As a result of the extraction of natural raw materials, water bodies, both underground and surface, are greatly depleted, and swamps are drained. When coal is mined, pumping is carried out groundwater located near the deposit. For each ton of coal, there are up to 20 m 3 of formation water, and during production iron ore- up to 8 m 3 of water. Water pumping creates such environmental problems as:

• formation of depression funnels;
• disappearance of springs;
• drying up of small rivers;
• disappearance of streams.

Surface waters suffer from pollution as a result of the extraction and processing of fossil raw materials. As well as into the atmosphere, a large amount of salts, metals, toxic substances, and waste enters the water.

As a result, microorganisms living in water bodies, fish and other living creatures die, a person uses polluted water not only for his household needs, but also for food. It is possible to prevent environmental problems associated with pollution of the hydrosphere by reducing discharges Wastewater, reducing water consumption during the extraction of products, filling the voids formed with water.

This can be achieved by improving the process of extracting raw materials, using new developments in the field of mechanical engineering for the extractive industry.

Impact on the animal and plant world

During active development large deposits raw materials, the radius of contamination of nearby soils can be 40 km. The soil is subject to various chemical changes, depending on the harmfulness of the processed substances. If a large amount of toxic substances enters the ground, trees, shrubs and even grass die and do not grow on it.

Consequently, there is no food for animals, they either die or look for new habitats, whole populations migrate. The solution to these problems should be to reduce the level of emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere, as well as compensatory measures to restore and clean up contaminated areas. Compensatory measures include fertilizing the soil, planting forests, organizing pastures.

When developing new deposits, when upper layer soil - fertile black soil, it can be transported and distributed to poor, depleted places, near already inactive mines.

Video: Environmental pollution

During the extraction and processing of minerals, there is a large-scale human impact on natural environment. The resulting environmental problems associated with the extraction of minerals require a comprehensive study and immediate solution.

What characterizes the extractive industry?

AT Russian Federation the extractive industry is widely developed, because the country has deposits of the main types of minerals. These accumulations of mineral and organic formations located in the bowels of the earth are effectively used, ensuring the life of people and production.

All minerals can be divided into three groups:

• solid subdivided into: coal, ores, non-metallic materials, etc.;
• liquid, the main representatives of this category are: fresh, mineral water and oil;
• gaseous which include natural gas.

Depending on the purpose, the following types of minerals are mined:

• ore materials(iron, manganese, copper, nickel ores, bauxites, chromites and precious metals);
• building materials(limestone, dolomite, clay, sand, marble, granite);
• non-metallic resources(jasper, agate, garnet, corundum, diamonds, rock crystal);
• mining and chemical raw materials(apatites, phosphorites, table and potassium salt, sulfur, barite, bromine- and iodine-containing solutions;
• fuel and energy materials(oil, gas, coal, peat, oil shale, uranium ores);
• hydromineral raw materials(underground fresh and mineralized waters);
• ocean mineral formations(ore-bearing veins, layers of the continental shelf and ferromanganese inclusions);
• mineral resources of sea water.

The share of the Russian extractive industry accounts for a quarter of the world's gas production, 17% of the world's oil, 15% - hard coal, 14% - iron ore.

Mining industry enterprises have become the largest sources of environmental pollution. Substances that are emitted by the mining complex have a detrimental effect on the ecosystem. The problems of the negative impact of the mining and processing industries are very acute, as they affect all spheres of life.

How does the industry affect the earth's surface, air, water, flora and fauna?

The scale of development of the extractive industry is amazing: when recalculating the volume of extraction of raw materials per inhabitant of the planet, approximately 20 tons of resources will be obtained. But only a tenth of this amount falls on the final products, and the rest is waste. The development of the mining complex inevitably leads to negative consequences, the main ones being:

• depletion of raw materials;
• environmental pollution;
• disruption of natural processes.

All this leads to serious environmental problems. You can look at individual examples of how they affect the environment different kinds extractive industries.

At mercury deposits, the landscape is disturbed, dumps are formed. This dissipates mercury, which is toxic substance that has a detrimental effect on all living things. A similar problem arises in the development of antimony deposits. As a result of the work, there are accumulations of heavy metals that pollute the atmosphere.

Gold mining uses technology to separate noble metal from mineral impurities, accompanied by the release of toxic components into the atmosphere. On the dumps of uranium ore deposits, the presence of radioactive radiation is observed.

Why is coal mining dangerous?

• deformation of the surface and coal-bearing seams;
• pollution of air, water and soil in the area of ​​the quarry;
• release of gas and dust during the removal of waste rocks to the surface;
• shallowing and disappearance of rivers;
• flooding of abandoned quarries;
• the formation of depression funnels;
• dehydration, salinization of the soil layer.

On the territory located near the mine, anthropogenic forms (ravines, quarries, waste heaps, dumps) are created from raw material waste, which can stretch for tens of kilometers. Neither trees nor other plants can grow on them. And the water flowing from the dumps with toxic substances harms all living things in large adjacent areas.

In the deposits of rock salt, the formation of halite waste occurs, which is carried by precipitation to reservoirs that serve to supply the inhabitants of nearby settlements drinking water. Near the development of magnesites, there is a change in the acid-base balance of the soil, leading to the death of vegetation. Change chemical composition soil leads to plant mutations - discoloration, ugliness, etc.

There is also pollution of agricultural land. When transporting minerals, dust can fly over long distances and settle on the soil.

With time Earth's crust depleted, reduced stocks of raw materials, falling content of minerals. As a result, production volumes and the amount of waste are increasing. One of the ways out of this situation is the creation of artificial analogues of natural materials.

Protection of the lithosphere

One of the methods to protect the earth's surface from the harmful effects of mining enterprises is land reclamation. Partially solve environmental problem it is possible by filling the formed recesses with the development waste.

Since many rocks contain more than one type of minerals, it is necessary to optimize technologies by extracting and processing all the components present in the ore. Such an approach will not only have a positive impact on the state of the environment, but will also bring considerable economic benefits.

How to save the environment?

On the present stage development of industrial technologies, it is necessary to provide for environmental protection measures. The priority is to create low-waste or non-waste production that can significantly reduce the negative impact on the environment.

Actions to help solve the problem

When solving the problem of environmental protection, it is important to use complex measures: industrial, economic, scientific and technical, social.

You can improve the environment by:

• more complete extraction of fossils from the bowels;
• the use of associated petroleum gas by industry;
• integrated use of all rock components;
• measures for water treatment in underground mining;
• application of mine wastewater for technical purposes;
• use of waste in other industries.

During mining and processing mineral resources nessesary to use modern technologies to reduce emissions of harmful substances. Despite the cost of applying advanced developments, investments are justified by improving the environmental situation.

AT general technology Mining causes the following types of environmental disturbances:

geomechanical- cracking of rocks as a result of explosions, changes in terrain, deforestation, deformation of the earth's surface;

hydrological- change in reserves, mode of movement, quality and level ground water, the removal of harmful substances into water bodies from the surface and bowels of the earth;

chemical- changes in the composition and properties of the atmosphere and hydrosphere (acidification, salinization, water and air pollution);

physical and mechanical- environmental pollution with dust, change in properties soil cover And so on;

Noise pollution and soil vibration.

The causes of hydrological disturbances are:

Regulations, as a form of disturbance, are manifested in the form of reservoirs and water canals. Caused by the need to drain the surface above the field,

Waterlogging is observed around dumps with an area of ​​more than 200 ha,

Flooding is typical for cases when production has an excess of water and does not use it completely in the water cycle. Water is discharged onto the ground, into streams and reservoirs, and additional areas of land are flooded. Elsewhere in connection with this, exhaustion may occur,

Drainage - occurs through the drainage of underground groundwater by workings and wells. At each quarry, the depression funnel of groundwater reaches a diameter of 35 - 50 km,

Flooding occurs in the case of disposal of liquid production waste.

Impact of open pit mining

In places of open mining, deforestation, vegetation disturbance and decommissioning are taking place. large areas agricultural land as a result of stripping and storage of rocks on the surface of the earth. Thus, the volume of overburden works (removal of rocks covering and enclosing the body of a mineral) in the open pits of the coal industry is 848 million m3 / year, iron ore - 380, building materials - 450. Krivoy Rog iron ore deposit - 800 m). The impact of open pit mining on the environment is depicted in Figure 4.4.

Rice. 4.4. Impact of open pit mining on the environment

Quarries often reach a depth of 400 - 600 m, and a correspondingly large number rocks brought to the surface. The areas occupied by dumps are several times larger than the area of ​​a quarry. Deep, mostly toxic, rock layers are dumped onto the surface of the dumps. This prevents the growth of plants, and after the rains, the water that flows from the dumps poisoned the rivers and soils. Tentatively, it can be considered that for the open mining of 1 million tons / year of minerals, about 100 hectares of land are required. For example, on land allotments 5 GOK Krivbass with a total area of ​​more than 20 thousand hectares, almost 84 million m3 of overburden and more than 70 million tons of tailings from processing plants are annually stored. There is not only a violation of the soil and vegetation cover in vast areas, but also the surface of the earth is disturbed both by mine workings and dumps. In Ukraine, the greatest violations of the natural environment occurred in Krivoy Rog, more than 18 thousand hectares of land were destroyed here (Fig. 4.5).

Rice. 4.5. space shot Krivoy Rog iron ore quarry

Changes caused by surface disturbance negatively affect its biological, erosive and aesthetic characteristics. It is in the open-cast mining of deposits that the geotoxicological influence of mining on humans is manifested. The productivity of agricultural land is declining. Thus, in the area of ​​the Kursk magnetic anomaly near quarries within a radius of 1.5–2 km, the yield of fields decreased by 30–50% due to alkalization of soils to pH = 8, the growth of harmful metal impurities in them, and a decrease in water supply.

In the process of open pit mining, the main sources of pollution include mass explosions, the operation of mining equipment and vehicles. Mass explosions in a quarry are periodic sources of pollution, as they are usually carried out once every 2 weeks. The charge of the explosion reaches 800 - 1200 tons, and the amount of rock mass blown up by it is 6 million tons. About 200 - 400 tons of dust are emitted into the atmosphere. It is considered 1 ton. An exploded explosive gives 40 m3 of CO2, in addition, nitrogen oxides are released.

Almost all mining operations are accompanied by dust formation. So, in the process of moving the rock with an excavator, the intensity of dust release is 6.9 g / s, in the process of loading coal with a rotary excavator - 8.5 g / s. Roads are permanent sources of dust formation. In some quarries, they account for 70 - 90% of all dust. Significant amounts of dust enter the atmosphere during loading and unloading operations. The intensity of dust emission in the process of excavation of coal by an excavator is 11.65 g / s, in the process of loading into railway cars - 1.15 g / s. Due to use a large number Vehicle, large areas under the cuts, as well as powerful massive explosions of atmospheric pollution under the condition of open mining is much greater than with the underground method.

Hydromechanized mining of minerals causes significant scale pollution of the hydrosphere, since all hydromechanized technologies are associated with the use of water, its pollution and the return of water in a polluted state to the general hydrological network. As a result, there is pollution of rivers and reservoirs with muddy waters, which are formed in the process of hydromechanized mining of minerals, fish leave reservoirs and significant areas of reservoirs are excluded from spawning grounds, and the floodplain is lost. Lost areas are restored for spawning approximately 10 - 15 years after the end of development. But taking into account that the vast majority of deposits are worked out within 25-50 years, the areas of polluted watershed are excluded from the reproduction of fish stocks for 45-70 years. For mining and washing sands and other rocks, different amounts of water are used and it is polluted to an unequal degree, which affects the amount of dilution and loss of minerals to varying degrees, especially if they are diluted with rocks containing fine clay, which is difficult to isolate and precipitate with muddy water discharged from washing plants.

Negative consequences of mining. Mining leads to disturbance of the relief; soil; flora; habitats of the animal world; changing the course of rivers water regime; drainage and waterlogging of lands; air pollution from vehicles and dust; the formation of ravines.

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In the process of mining and processing of minerals, a person affects a large geological cycle. First, a person converts mineral deposits into other forms chemical compounds. For example, a person gradually exhausts combustible minerals (oil, coal, gas, peat) and eventually converts them into carbon dioxide and carbonates. Secondly, a person distributes over the surface of the earth, dispersing, as a rule, former geological accumulations.

At present, about 20 tons of raw materials are extracted annually for each inhabitant of the Earth, of which a few percent go into the final product, and the rest of the mass turns into waste. There are significant losses of useful components (up to 50 - 60%) during the extraction of minerals, enrichment and processing.

In underground mining, coal losses are 30-40%, in open-cast mining - 10%. In the mining of iron ores by the open method, the losses are 3–5%, in the underground mining of tungsten-molybdenum ores, the losses reach 10–12%, and in the open mining, 3–5%. During the development of mercury and gold deposits, losses can reach 30%.

Most mineral deposits are complex and contain several components that are economically viable to extract. In oil fields, associated components are gas, sulfur, iodine, bromine, boron, in gas fields - sulfur, nitrogen, helium. Non-ferrous metal ores are characterized by the greatest complexity. Deposits of potash salts usually contain sylvin, carnallite and halite. Sylvin undergoes the most intensive further processing. The loss of sylvite is 25–40%, the loss of carnallite is 70–80%, and that of halite is 90%.

Currently, there is a constant and rather significant decrease in the content of metals in mined ores. Thus, over the past 2–3 decades, the content of lead, zinc, copper in ores has decreased annually by 2–2.3%, molybdenum by almost 3%, and the content of antimony has decreased by almost 2 times over the past 10 years. The iron content in mined ores is reduced by an average of 1% (absolute) per year. Obviously, in 20–25 years, to obtain the same amount of non-ferrous and ferrous metals, it will be necessary to more than double the amount of mined and processed ore.

Mining affects all spheres of the Earth. The impact of mining on the lithosphere is manifested in the following:

1. Creation of anthropogenic forms of mesorelief: quarries, dumps (up to 100-150 m high), waste heaps (up to 300 m high), etc. On the territory of Donbass there are more than 2,000 waste rock dumps with a height of about 50–80 m. As a result of open mining, quarries with a depth of more than 500 m are formed.

2. Activation geological processes(karst, landslides, talus, subsidence and displacement of rocks). During underground mining, subsidence troughs and dips are formed. In Kuzbass, a chain of sinkholes (up to 30 m deep) stretches for more than 50 km.

3. Change in physical fields, especially in permafrost regions.

4. Mechanical disturbance of soils and their chemical pollution. On average, in the Russian coal industry, the extraction of 1 million tons of fuel means the withdrawal and disturbance of 8 hectares of land, with an open method - 20-30 hectares. Worldwide, the total area of ​​land disturbed by mining operations exceeds 6 million hectares. To these lands should be added agricultural and forest lands, on which mining production has negative impact. Within a radius of 35 - 40 km from the existing quarry, crop yields are reduced by 30% compared to the average level.

Mining affects the state of the atmosphere:

1. Air pollution occurs with emissions of CH4, sulfur, carbon oxides from mine workings, as a result of burning dumps and waste heaps (release of N, C, S oxides), gas and oil fires.

2. The dust content of the atmosphere increases as a result of burning dumps and waste heaps, during explosions in quarries, which affects the amount solar radiation and temperature and rainfall.

More than 70% of waste heaps in Kuzbass and 85% of dumps in Donbass are on fire. At a distance of up to several kilometers from them, the concentrations of SO2, CO2, and CO are significantly increased in the air.

In the 80s. in the Ruhr and Upper Silesian basins, 2–5 kg of dust fell daily for every 100 km2 of area, the intensity of sunshine in Germany decreased by 20%, in Poland by 50%. The soil in the fields adjacent to quarries and mines is buried under a layer of dust up to 0.5 m thick and loses its fertility for many years.

The impact of mining on the hydrosphere is manifested in the depletion of aquifers and in the deterioration of the quality of underground and surface water; in reducing the flow of small rivers, excessive drainage of swamps. A side change in the water regime as a result of mining sometimes manifests itself in an area that is almost 10 times larger than the area disturbed by mining.

When coal is mined in the mines of the Rostov region, more than 20 m3 of formation water has to be pumped out for each ton of coal mined;