Pit water, mine water or mining water is water that collects in a mine and which has to be brought to the surface by water management methods in order to enable the mine to continue working.
Pit water, mine water or mining water is water that collects in a mine and which has to be brought to the surface by water management methods in order to enable the mine to continue working.
Although all water that enters pit workings originates from atmospheric precipitation, the miner distinguishes between surface water and groundwater. Surface water enters the pit through openings in the mine at the surface of the ground, such as tunnel portals or shaft entrances. During heavy rain, water seeps into the earth and forms ground water when it meets layers of impervious rock. Pit water is mainly interstitial water and groundwater that seeps into the mine workings. [1]
Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant rocks, such as quartzite, given the right conditions. Subterranean drainage may limit surface water, with few to no rivers or lakes. However, in regions where the dissolved bedrock is covered or confined by one or more superimposed non-soluble rock strata, distinctive karst features may occur only at subsurface levels and can be totally missing above ground.
An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials. Groundwater from aquifers can be extracted using a water well. Water from aquifers can be sustainably harvested through the use of qanats. Aquifers vary greatly in their characteristics. The study of water flow in aquifers and the characterization of aquifers is called hydrogeology. Related terms include aquitard, which is a bed of low permeability along an aquifer, and aquiclude, which is a solid, impermeable area underlying or overlying an aquifer, the pressure of which could create a confined aquifer. The classification of aquifers is as follows: Saturated versus unsaturated; aquifers versus aquitards; confined versus unconfined; isotropic versus anisotropic; porous, karst, or fractured; transboundary aquifer.
The Great Artesian Basin (GAB), located in Australia, is the largest and deepest artesian basin in the world, stretching over 1,700,000 square kilometres (660,000 sq mi), with measured water temperatures ranging from 30 to 100 °C. The basin provides the only source of fresh water through much of inland Australia.
A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are locally also known as vrtače and shakeholes, and to openings where surface water enters into underground passages known as ponor, swallow hole or swallet. A cenote is a type of sinkhole that exposes groundwater underneath. Sink and stream sink are more general terms for sites that drain surface water, possibly by infiltration into sediment or crumbled rock.
Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow.
The Rammelsberg is a mountain, 635 metres (2,083 ft) high, on the northern edge of the Harz range, south of the historic town of Goslar in the North German state of Lower Saxony. The mountain is the location of an important silver, copper, and lead mine. When it closed in 1988, it had been the only mine still working continuously for over 1,000 years. Because of its long history of mining and testimony to the advancement and exchange of technology over many centuries, the visitor mine of Rammelsberg was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992.
Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock become completely saturated with water is called the water table. Groundwater is recharged from the surface; it may discharge from the surface naturally at springs and seeps, and can form oases or wetlands. Groundwater is also often withdrawn for agricultural, municipal, and industrial use by constructing and operating extraction wells. The study of the distribution and movement of groundwater is hydrogeology, also called groundwater hydrology.
A spring is a natural exit point at which groundwater emerges out of the aquifer and flows onto the top of the Earth's crust (pedosphere) to become surface water. It is a component of the hydrosphere, as well as a part of the water cycle. Springs have long been important for humans as a source of fresh water, especially in arid regions which have relatively little annual rainfall.
A pit latrine, also known as pit toilet, is a type of toilet that collects human waste in a hole in the ground. Urine and feces enter the pit through a drop hole in the floor, which might be connected to a toilet seat or squatting pan for user comfort. Pit latrines can be built to function without water or they can have a water seal. When properly built and maintained, pit latrines can decrease the spread of disease by reducing the amount of human feces in the environment from open defecation. This decreases the transfer of pathogens between feces and food by flies. These pathogens are major causes of infectious diarrhea and intestinal worm infections. Infectious diarrhea resulted in about 700,000 deaths in children under five years old in 2011 and 250 million lost school days. Pit latrines are a low-cost method of separating feces from people.
The vadose zone, also termed the unsaturated zone, is the part of Earth between the land surface and the top of the phreatic zone, the position at which the groundwater is at atmospheric pressure. Hence, the vadose zone extends from the top of the ground surface to the water table.
A petroleum seep is a place where natural liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons escape to the earth's atmosphere and surface, normally under low pressure or flow. Seeps generally occur above either terrestrial or offshore petroleum accumulation structures. The hydrocarbons may escape along geological layers, or across them through fractures and fissures in the rock, or directly from an outcrop of oil-bearing rock.
A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn up by a pump, or using containers, such as buckets or large water bags that are raised mechanically or by hand. Water can also be injected back into the aquifer through the well. Wells were first constructed at least eight thousand years ago and historically vary in construction from a simple scoop in the sediment of a dry watercourse to the qanats of Iran, and the stepwells and sakiehs of India. Placing a lining in the well shaft helps create stability, and linings of wood or wickerwork date back at least as far as the Iron Age.
The Hüttenstollen, also Straßberger Hüttenstollen, was the central drainage adit in the Straßberg mining field and was also part of the Lower Harz Pond and Ditch System in the Harz Mountains of Germany. The adit lies at a depth of 50 m and is 750 m long. The pit water was drained into the Selke. The drainage ditches were the Straßberger Flösse and the Stollgraben.
A Pinge or Binge ("binger") is the name given in German-speaking Europe to a wedge-, ditch- or funnel-shaped depression in the terrain caused by mining activity. This depression or sink-hole is frequently caused by the collapse of old underground mine workings that are close to the Earth's surface. Unlike natural landforms, a Pinge is a direct result of human activity. The term has no direct equivalent in English, but may be translated as "mining sink-hole", "mine slump" or, in some cases, as "glory hole".
A brick-lined well is a hand-dug water well whose walls are lined with bricks, sometimes called "Dutch bricks" if they are trapezoidal or made on site. The technique is ancient, but is still appropriate in developing countries where labor costs are low and material costs are high.
Groundwater pollution occurs when pollutants are released to the ground and make their way into groundwater. This type of water pollution can also occur naturally due to the presence of a minor and unwanted constituent, contaminant, or impurity in the groundwater, in which case it is more likely referred to as contamination rather than pollution. Groundwater pollution can occur from on-site sanitation systems, landfill leachate, effluent from wastewater treatment plants, leaking sewers, petrol filling stations, hydraulic fracturing (fracking) or from over application of fertilizers in agriculture. Pollution can also occur from naturally occurring contaminants, such as arsenic or fluoride. Using polluted groundwater causes hazards to public health through poisoning or the spread of disease.
The Maaßener Gaipel is a pub catering for day trippers on the northeastern hillside of the Kranichsberg at a height of 420 m above NN, situated above the mining town of Lautenthal in the Harz Mountains of central Germany. The name goes back to the above-ground workings of the Maaßener Treibschacht or Maaßen Hoisting Shaft 51°51′49″N10°17′25″E, which was located immediately east of the inn. Gaipel is a common expression in the Upper Harz for a headframe and goes back to the use of a horse whim which in German is a Pferdegöpel. Whims were used to transport men and materiel up and down mineshafts, for example using man engines, and also to operate water management equipment. Maaßen is shorthand for the name of the local pit which was the Grube Zweite, Dritte, Vierte, Fünfte und Sechste Maß nach der Sachsenzeche. Maaß, also variously spelt Maaß, Maas or Mas, is a unit of length for a pit field (Grubenfeld) and in mining in the Upper Harz measured 28 Lachter or 53.8 metres. The pub was built in 1924 on the initiative of the Harz Club on the terrain of the old mine shaft. But decades before the area had already become a popular destination with walkers due to its views of the mining town and the valley of the Laute.
A flooded mine is one of the direct results of a mine's closure procedure. When a mine stops operating, its maintenance systems also stop, in which the dewatering systems are included. Without these systems the mine will get flooded by water that naturally occurs in rock formations in the ground.
Mine dewatering is the action of removing groundwater from a mine. When a mine extends below the water table groundwater will, due to gravity, infiltrate the mine working. On some projects groundwater is a minor impediment that can be dealt with on an ad-hoc basis. In other mines, and in other geological settings, dewatering is fundamental to the viability of the mine and may require the use of very large resources and management.
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