Physical and Hydrological Characterization of Mine Tailings – A First Step for Revegetation with Native Plant Communities.

The ability to sustain native vegetation on inactive mine tailings mitigates numerous environmental issues such as wind and water erosion, mass movement, leaching of hazardous chemicals, as well as esthetic concerns. Mine tailings commonly exhibit a gradient of narrow particle size distributions similar to river delta sediment patterns, which result in poor plant water availability. To develop strategies for optimizing hydrological conditions in mine tailings in the arid Southwest we conducted an Electrical Resistivity (ER) survey along transects of and inactive tailings site. ER imaging and geostatistics were applied to determine contrasting locations for core sampling and installation of Time Domain Transmission (TDT) sensors for long-term monitoring of profile water status. The obtained detailed textural and hydraulic subsurface map will be used in conjunction with numerical modeling to propose large-scale engineering solutions for improving plant water availability.