ENVS 3080 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Methane Emissions, Sediment Basin, Mine Reclamation
13 Oct 2017
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Unit 10: restoration of areas of extreme disturbance. A most extreme form of soil degradation comes from human activity for extraction of minerals and aggregates. The extraction process can involve underground extraction (digging tunnels and bringing large amounts of subsurface material to the surface) or surface extraction (removing surface layers to expose the desired material). It causes significant disturbance of existing soil profiles, landscapes and ecosystems. Strip mining is a specific form of surface mining that is used to extract mineral material that is close to the surface. Drastic changes in landscape, vegetation, soils and ecosystems result from this. Subsurface mining also results in drastic changes as excavated material from below the surface is deposited on the surface. In the process of strip mining for coal, the overburden (soil, rock and other material) covering the coal is excavated and the coal extracted.
