Toggle Main Menu Toggle Search

Open Access padlockePrints

Hydrochemical stratification in flooded underground mines: An overlooked pitfall

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Charlotte Nuttall, Professor Paul Younger

Downloads

Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.


Abstract

The fact that flooded underground mines are commonly hydrochemically stratified is often not appreciated. Water samples taken from the water surface in partly flooded shafts are often wrongly assumed to represent the water quality existing throughout the entire water column. In some cases, treatment systems have been designed on the basis of these often misleading water surface samples. Stratification can build up within a slowly recovering system where there are few lateral inflows and outflows to the system. Less mineralised, shallow-sourced water enters at the top of the water column and more heavily mineralised water tends to remain at the base of the water column. This water has a high dissolved solids content due to dissolution of increasing amounts of pyrite oxidation salts and other minerals as the water level rises through the old workings. However, such stratification can easily be lost following hydraulic disturbance of the system (either by pumping or by natural decant when the water level reaches an outflow pathway from the mine system, such as an old adit or shaft collar) and often results in surface discharges of poor water quality. Test pumping of one such stratified system (Frances Colliery, Scotland) has provided useful information about how stratified systems develop, and how they can behave when disturbed. The water quality observed after stratification was disturbed by pumping was worse than would have been anticipated on the basis of water samples taken from the surface of the water column prior to pumping (with concentrations of contaminants such as iron and zinc being around two orders of magnitude greater than in water surface samples). Taken together with other information from the literature, the experience at Frances Colliery supports the proposal of criteria for recognising when stratification of mine water quality might be anticipated, thus facilitating the timely deployment of measures required for its detection at an early stage. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Nuttall CA, Younger PL

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Journal of Contaminant Hydrology

Year: 2004

Volume: 69

Issue: 1-2

Pages: 101-114

ISSN (print): 0169-7722

ISSN (electronic): 1873-6009

Publisher: Elsevier BV

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0169-7722(03)00152-9

DOI: 10.1016/S0169-7722(03)00152-9

PubMed id: 14972439


Altmetrics

Altmetrics provided by Altmetric


Share