Some mining companies build water-retaining impoundments to submerge mine wastes, while others use natural rivers, lakes, fjords, marine shallows, and deep-ocean trenches (click for a table of minesites and projects involved with underwater disposal in natural waterbodies). In these natural waterbodies, there are concerns for aquatic life residing in the water column, on the bottom, and within sediments.

    The disposal of mines wastes into sea water is becoming more popular, especially in Australasia, but at a time when there is a strong counter-movement to any type of ocean dumping. In other countries like Canada and the USA, marine disposal is not permitted anymore.  Everywhere, the appropriate balance between mining, economic development, land use, and protection of the often unseen underwater environment is particularly difficult to define and almost always controversial.

    In addition to mine-waste disposal, ocean floors are targets for mineral exploration.   Relatively shallow, near-continent sediments have been dredged for decades to recover metals and minerals.  However, deep-ocean floors are gaining increasing attention as mineral deposits.  Since deep-ocean environments are not well characterized due to the difficulty and expense of reaching them, a great deal of innovative and expensive work will be needed to predict and manage the environmental effects of this type of mining.  For one example of this work, see our News and Case Studies for news during January 1998.

    MDAG is currently conducting research into the effects of mining on shore and ocean environments.  Our current focus is on old, closed mining operations which originally degraded relatively small ecosystems on islands (see our September 1998 Internet Case Study).  Our main objective is to characterize how quickly, and in which ways, the environment recovered.  If you have any relevant information or suggestions, please contact us.

    As a long-term research program, our sister organization (the Marine Documentation and Analysis Group) is documenting the health of the world's reefs through photographs (watch for a photo-documentary coming soon).   For example, among the worst long-term degradation of reefs that we have located to date can be found on the south side of Oahu in Hawaii (USA), where many decades of development, industrial activity, and tourism has virtually halted coral growth.  However, this impact is confined mostly to the south side.  On the west side of Oahu, only a few tens of kilometers away, the reefs are much more colourful and vibrant.  Just a few hundred kilometers away, on the west side of the "Big" Island of Hawaii, there is some of the most active and thriving coral that we have found anywhere.

MDAG Marine-Life Scene:
Click on the picture
for a larger view

Home ⋅ Mining & Environment ⋅ What is MDAG? ⋅ Publishing & Downloads ⋅ Case Studies ⋅ Fractal 1/f Slopes ⋅ Links ⋅ Contact Us ⋅ Underwater ⋅ MDAGdata ⋅ Search

Go to the Marine Documentation and Analysis Group

Created by K.Morin