Maximizing carbon sequestration on ultramafic mine tailings remediation through bioamendments and microbial inoculants

开采金属会产生一种被称为尾矿的废物。这些尾矿是由没有金属产品的细颗粒残余材料组成的，储存在加拿大各地的工程设施中，通常占地数百公顷。很少有植物能在尾矿上生长，而且为了防止对邻近生态系统造成破坏，维持尾矿的费用很高。尾矿恢复提供了一个解决方案，以恢复植被和生态系统功能，否则没有生态效益的地区。重要的是，随着植物的生长，它们从大气中吸收碳，并将其储存在它们的生物量和土壤中。这是一种自然的气候解决方案，可以减少应对气候变化所需的大气二氧化碳浓度。不列颠哥伦比亚省、魁北克省和育空地区含有大量富含镍的基岩，被称为超镁质岩。采矿产生大量的碳排放，抵消这些排放以减少对环境的影响非常重要。重要的是，土壤微生物负责对健康土壤至关重要的养分循环和分解过程。但人们对如何恢复超镁铁尾矿内或尾矿上的植物生命和功能微生物群落知之甚少。该项目探索利用来自纸浆和造纸工业的有机废物和来自自然系统的微生物群落，以最大限度地提高超镁铁尾矿上的自然植被生长。这种方法减少了有机废物生产工业的生态足迹，同时恢复了工业采矿过程造成的生态系统破坏。这项研究的结果可能提供多种环境效益。利用有机废物与天然土壤微生物的营养循环能力相结合，可以通过稳定防止对邻近生态系统的侵蚀，恢复生态系统服务（例如野生动物栖息地）和抵消最初采矿过程中的碳排放来减轻尾矿的影响。它还将使加拿大各地的其他尾矿场能够最大限度地储存碳，有助于降低加拿大的温室气体排放，并为加拿大到2050年实现温室气体净零排放做出贡献。

Mining for metals results in a waste product known as tailings. These tailings are composed of fine grain residual material devoid of metal product and stored within engineered facilities, often hundreds of hectares in size, throughout Canada. Few plants can grow on tailings and they are costly to maintain in order to prevent damage to neighbouring ecosystems. Restoration of tailings offers a solution to restore vegetation and ecosystem functioning to areas that otherwise provide no ecological benefit. Importantly, as plants grow they remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it in their biomass and in the soil. This acts as a natural climate solution to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations required to combat climate change. British Columbia, Quebec, and the Yukon contain large quantities of nickel rich bedrock, known as ultramafic rock. Mining creates large carbon emissions and it is important to offset these emissions to reduce the impact on the environment. Importantly, soil microbes are responsible for nutrient cycling and decomposition processes that are vital for healthy soils. But little is known about how to restore plant life and functioning microbial communities within or on ultramafic tailings. This project explores the use of organic waste products from the pulp & paper industry and microbial communities from natural systems to maximize natural vegetation growth on ultramafic tailings. This approach reduces the ecological footprint of organic waste producing industries, while restoring damaged ecosystems caused by industrial mining processes. The results of this research may provide multiple environmental benefits. Using an organic waste product combined with the nutrient cycling powers of natural soil microbes, tailings impacts may be mitigated through stabilization preventing erosion into adjacent ecosystems, restoring ecosystem services (e.g. wildlife habitat) and offsetting carbon emissions from the initial mining process. It will also enable other tailings sites across Canada to maximize carbon storage, helping to lower Canada's greenhouse gas emissions and contribute toward Canada's net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.