Resource or Environmental Liability? Development of Novel Ground Imaging Tools to Identify Critical Metals and Environmental Susceptibility in Legacy

该项目的总体目标是发展新的地面成像方法，以确定矿山废物中关键金属的空间分布和浓度（即资源潜力），并评估后处理和补救与不干扰场地的潜在环境影响。科尔努比亚矿田几个世纪以来的采矿遗留下来的一个问题是产生了大量的矿山废物。我们的假设是，当使用现代方法进行再处理时，其中一些废物将含有经济数量的关键金属（例如锡和钨）。然而，对这一潜在资源的评估是具有挑战性的。这些材料（包括废石、废土、尾矿和炉渣）由于在碎屑和场地尺度上具有相当大的非均质性，难以取样和表征，存在可变的表生蚀变，其深度在很大程度上不受限制。此外，这些废物有可能造成重大的负面环境影响（酸性矿井排水和有毒金属释放），在后处理和/或补救期间可能会加剧。我们的重点将是开发地球物理工具（得到矿物学和水文地质研究的支持和验证），以对这些废物进行体积成像和表征。我们将部署一套综合方法，加上有监督的机器学习，以期对选定的试验地点进行废物分类和开发资源分配模型。这些相同的地球物理工具还将用于开发定义废物结构和潜在地质的3D地面模型，以及土壤水分动力学和地下水流动的4D模型，以提高我们对令人不安的历史废物的环境影响的理解。我们预计，在该项目中开发的方法将大大提高矿山废物表征的最先进水平，并将适用于科尔努比亚以外的地区。因此，一旦确定和试行了一种办法，我们将设法同国际同事就其他矿山废物类型，例如铜金尾矿，进行试验性研究。该项目将由英国地质调查局（在水文地球物理、矿物学和材料表征方面的专业知识）、莱斯特大学（经济地质和矿物学）、坎伯恩矿业学院（经济地质和Cornubian矿田）和Terradat（英国）有限公司（应用地球物理学）合作完成。

The overarching objectives of the project are to develop novel ground imaging approaches to determine the spatial distributions and concentrations of critical metals in mine waste (i.e. resource potential), and to assess potential environmental impacts of reprocessing and remediating versus leaving sites undisturbed.A legacy of the centuries of mining in the Cornubian Orefield has been the production of large volumes of mine waste. Our hypothesis is that some of these wastes will contain economic quantities of critical metals (e.g. tin and tungsten) when reprocessed using modern approaches. However, the assessment of this potential resource is challenging. These materials (including waste rock, spoil, tailings and slags) are difficult to sample and characterise due to considerable heterogeneity at both the clast and site scale, there is variable supergene alteration, and their depth is largely unconstrained. Furthermore, these wastes have the potential to cause significant negative environmental impacts (acid mine drainage and toxic metal release), which could be exacerbated during reprocessing and/or remediation.Our focus will be on developing geophysical tools (supported and validated by mineralogical and hydrogeological studies) to volumetrically image and characterise these wastes. We will deploy an integrated suite of methods, coupled with supervised machine learning, with a view to classifying the waste and developing resource distribution models for selected trial sites. These same geophysical tools will also be used to develop 3D ground models defining waste structure and underlying geology and 4D models of soil moisture dynamics and groundwater flow to improve our understanding of the environmental implications of disturbing historic waste.We anticipate that the approaches developed within this project will significantly advance the state-of-the-art for mine waste characterisation, and will be applicable beyond the Cornubian context. Consequently, once an approach has been established and trialled, we will seek to develop pilot studies with international colleagues at other mine waste types, e.g. copper-gold tailings.The project will be a collaboration between the British Geological Survey (expertise in hydrogeophysics & mineralogy and materials characterisation), University of Leicester (economic geology and mineralogy), Camborne School of Mines (economic geology & Cornubian Orefield), and Terradat (UK) Ltd (applied geophysics).