Entangled histories: Iron ore mining in Canada and the United States

Thistle, John; Langston, Nancy

doi:10.1016/j.exis.2015.06.003

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…The tailings produced from taconite processing differed from those produced from washable ore in scale and content. Rather than being primarily silica-based, like the tailings produced from washable ores, some tailings produced from taconite processing contained materials such as asbestos which presented new technological challenges for containment (Thistle and Langston, 2016). Taconite tailings were typically dumped into water bodies and basins, rather than on land, and they could migrate far from where they were originally deposited.…”

Section: Taconite Wastesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Assured by the Reserve Mining Co. that tailings would remain contained within a deep trench in the lake, in 1947 the State of Minnesota granted permission to Reserve to dump its tailings into Lake Superior. In 1955 the company's plant began operations (Manuel, 2015;Thistle and Langston, 2016). Yet Reserve's tailings, and the asbestiform fibers within them, mobilized through the western arm of Lake Superior, eventually contaminating the drinking water supply of Duluth (Thistle and Langston, 2016).…”

Section: Taconite Wastesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Federal involvement in the creation of a shipping and railroad infrastructure within the Great Lakes, starting with the 1855 construction of Sault St. Marie locks, enabled 19 th century expansion of the Lake Superior District (Bowlus 2010, Reynolds andDawson 2011). In the 20th century, the shift to low-grade ores required government investments in infrastructure and new tax policies (Thistle and Langston 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A geospatial approach to uncovering the hidden waste footprint of Lake Superior’s Mesabi Iron Range

Baeten

Langston

Lafreniere

2016

The Extractive Industries and Society

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For decades, the Lake Superior Iron District produced a significant majority of the world's iron used in steel production. Chief among these was the Mesabi Range of northern Minnesota, a vast deposit of hematite and magnetic taconite ores stretching for over 100 miles in length. Iron ore mining in the Mesabi Range involved three major phases: direct shipping ores (1847-1970s), washable ores (1907-1980s), and taconite (1947-current). Each phase of iron mining used different technologies to extract and process ore. Producing all of this iron yielded a vast landscape of mine waste. This paper uses a historical GIS to illuminate the spatial extent of mining across the Lake Superior Iron District, to locate where lowgrade ore processing took place, and to identify how and where waste was produced. Our analysis shows that the technological shift to low-grade ore mining placed new demands on the environment, primarily around processing plants. Direct shipping ore mines produced less mine waste than low-grade ore mines, and this waste was confined to the immediate vicinity of mines themselves. Low-grade ore processing, in contrast, created more dispersed waste landscapes as tailings mobilized from the mines themselves into waterbodies and human communities.

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Section: Taconite Wastesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Taconite Wastesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A geospatial approach to uncovering the hidden waste footprint of Lake Superior’s Mesabi Iron Range

Baeten

Langston

Lafreniere

2016

The Extractive Industries and Society

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“…The extraction of iron (Fe) ore has great socioeconomic importance; however, large amounts of waste are generated annually, and drastic changes in landscape occur through the formation of mining pits and waste piles (Thistle and Langston, 2016). Rehabilitation of these areas requires complex revegetation planning and soil quality monitoring, which may involve the use of tolerant plants and soil fertility management (Bateman et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biochar and conventional compost reduce hysteresis and increase phosphorus desorbability in iron mining waste

Guedes¹,

Pinto²,

Ramos³

et al. 2021

Revista Brasileira De Ciência Do Solo

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Phosphorus (P) fixation in the soil reduces the utilization of this element by plants and can be one of the main problems for fertilization management in soils containing Fe oxides. As a strategy to minimize the effects of P retention, organic materials, such as biochar or commercial composts, may be useful tools to maintain P availability and delay immobilization of this element in the soil, thereby benefiting, for example, the rehabilitation of areas impacted by Fe mining. The objective of this study was to evaluate the kinetics of P sorption and desorption and the hysteresis index in red mining waste from Fe mining subjected to açaí biochar and commercial compost amendments. Therefore, a substrate collected from Fe mining waste piles in the Carajás Mineral Province was incubated for 30 days with açaí biochar, commercial compost, and açaí biochar + commercial compost at a ratio of 90 % mining waste and 10 % organic amendment (w/w). The P sorption and desorption kinetics were evaluated in a solution containing 10 mg L -1 P at times from 0.5 to 48 h; the data were modeled according to a pseudo-first-order equation considering two types of reaction sites, and the hysteresis index was obtained by the difference between the sorption and desorption isotherms. Treatment of the mining substrate with açaí biochar reduced P sorption, while P desorption was increased by up to 60 % by applying biochar and/or commercial compost. Açaí biochar also reduced the hysteresis of P sorption from 78 to 54.8 %, in addition to slowing P fixation in this substrate. Thus, this study showed that açaí biochar and commercial compost may maximize the benefits of phosphate fertilization during the rehabilitation of areas impacted by Fe mining. However, as these composts can cause different effects on P dynamics in mining waste, their effects on other elements, such as micronutrients, whose availability may be affected, are important to be evaluated.

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Section: Taconite Wastesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Landscape of Water and Waste: Heritage Legacies and Environmental Change in the Mesabi Iron Range

Baeten¹

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Entangled histories: Iron ore mining in Canada and the United States

Cited by 12 publications

References 11 publications

A geospatial approach to uncovering the hidden waste footprint of Lake Superior’s Mesabi Iron Range

A geospatial approach to uncovering the hidden waste footprint of Lake Superior’s Mesabi Iron Range

Biochar and conventional compost reduce hysteresis and increase phosphorus desorbability in iron mining waste

A Landscape of Water and Waste: Heritage Legacies and Environmental Change in the Mesabi Iron Range

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