To further understand the anisotropic behavior of layered rock and the precursor characteristics of rock mass instability, a series of uniaxial compression experiments using a loading system and an acoustic emission system was conducted on sandstone specimens. The influence of bedding on the mechanical parameters and failure modes and the statistical evolution of the acoustic emission energy were successively discussed. The results of axial stress-strain curves and crack propagation modes showed that the existence of a bedding plane increased the anisotropy of the rocks, and the magnitude of the bedding inclination also exerted certain influence on this anisotropy. Furthermore, we used the least squares method and the maximum likelihood method to analyze the b value and power-law exponent, respectively. The results of statistical evolution of acoustic emission energy showed that the b value, the effective power-law exponent, and the optimal exponent could be used as monitoring indexes for the rock mass stability. With the progress of the experiment, the following phenomena pertaining to acoustic emission activities occurred, which may indicate imminent danger of collapse: (1) the crackling noises increased significantly; (2) the variation of the b value exhibited a significant downward trend; and (3) the effective power-law exponent and the optimal exponent changed in different stages and gradually decreased as the final failure was approached. The findings in this paper may provide a theoretical basis for predicting the collapse and instability of rock mass structures.

With the improvement in tailing mining-grade requirements and in mineral processing technology, tailing materials tend to be fine-grained. Under the action of earthquakes, a tailing dam is prone to liquefaction, which endangers the safety and stability of the dam. To further explore the dynamic properties of tailing silt under cyclic stress, through a series of dynamic triaxial experiments, we investigated the growth of the hysteresis curve, the development of pore pressure, and the energy dissipation law of tailing silt. The experimental findings indicated that increasing the density of the sample significantly improves its liquefaction resistance and the pore pressure development curve can be fitted using the BiDoseResp function. At the same cyclic stress ratio, the sample’s anti-liquefaction strength did not rise monotonically with increasing confining pressure but changed variably at values near a specified low confining pressure; when the sample density rose under the same settings, the specific confining pressure reduced. We also further discussed the evolution law of the stress–strain curves of tailing silt. The results further explored the dynamic characteristics of tailing silt, which can provide some reference for the seismic design and reinforcement measures of many fine-grained tailing dams.