Mine Waste
Our Nation has a long history of mining. Some of the materials left behind, long considered wastes, could also prove to be a resource.
Mining requires moving a lot of rock in order to extract valuable minerals.
Our Nation has a history of mining that is over 200 years old – and reminders of that legacy dot the landscape. Mine wastes such as mine tailings can contain minerals that are valuable today but were not economically or technologically feasible to process at the time they were mined.
Today, extracting minerals from mine wastes could be a way of supplementing our domestic mineral supply.
Since mine wastes are already above ground and often partially processed, recovering minerals from mine wastes could also have a smaller environmental footprint than producing minerals through traditional mining. We currently have a poor understanding, however, of the mineral content and locations of mine wastes.
We developed a standardized protocol to collect data about the geochemistry of legacy mine wastes across the Nation. In partnership with State Geological Surveys, we are developing a National Mine Waste Inventory that will represent a major step forward towards understanding the resource potential of mine wastes in the U.S.