Arsenic in dust and aerosol generated by mining, mineral processing and metallurgical extraction industries, is a serious threat to human populations throughout the world. Major sources of contamination include smelting operations, coal combustion, hard rock mining, as well as their associated waste products, including fly ash, mine wastes and tailings. The number of uncontained arsenic-rich mi...

Surface coal mining in Appalachia has caused extensive replacement of forest with non-forested land cover, much of which is unmanaged and unproductive. Although forested ecosystems are valued by society for both marketable products and ecosystem services, forests have not been restored on most Appalachian mined lands because traditional reclamation practices, encouraged by regulatory policies, ...

-Increasing returns to scale (RTS) is frequently postulated as affecting productivity in surface coal mining. However, it is not clear whether increased capital intensity or increased output is the relevant phenomenon. A ray-homothetic production function that incorporates the capital-labor mix and fixed site geology into the scale elasticity is presented and estimated with a micro (mine level)...

During the last three decades, a significant amount of research has been directed to developing predictive tools for assessing stability Castlegate Sandstone escarpment, travel distances debris and need any control measures in Central Utah. The cliff-forming is 60 m thick at study mine Utah lies approximately 250 above multiple-seam coal reserves. To assess escarpment stability, authors used mu...