Mineral law digest embracing a digest of decisions of the courts and of the land department, under the public mineral land laws; a brief manual of procedure, with forms; and a manual of mineral surveys and departmental regulations.

Mode of access: Internet.

United States mining laws and regulations thereunder

At head of title: General Land Office.

Settlement of fill with particular reference to opencast coal mining sites

A study of information available on the settlement characteristics of backfill in restored opencast coal mining sites and other similar earthworks projects has been undertaken. In addition, the methods of opencast mining, compaction controls, monitoring and test methods have been reviewed. To consider and develop the methods of predicting the settlement of fill, three sites in the West Midlands have been examined; at each, the backfill had been placed in a controlled manner. In addition, use has been made of a finite element computer program to compare a simple two-dimensional linear elastic analysis with field observations of surface settlements in the vicinity of buried highwalls. On controlled backfill sites, settlement predictions have been accurately made, based on a linear relationship between settlement (expressed as a percentage of fill height) against logarithm of time. This `creep' settlement was found to be effectively complete within 18 months of restoration. A decrease of this percentage settlement was observed with increasing fill thickness; this is believed to be related to the speed with which the backfill is placed. A rising water table within the backfill is indicated to cause additional gradual settlement. A prediction method, based on settlement monitoring, has been developed and used to determine the pattern of settlement across highwalls and buried highwalls. The zone of appreciable differential settlement was found to be mainly limited to the highwall area, the magnitude was dictated by the highwall inclination. With a backfill cover of about 15 metres over a buried highwall the magnitude of differential settlement was negligible. Use has been made of the proposed settlement prediction method and monitoring to control the re-development of restored opencase sites. The specifications, tests and monitoring techniques developed in recent years have been used to aid this. Such techniques have been valuable in restoring land previously derelict due to past underground mining.

Assessing the legacy of the pine point mine: post-industrial land cover and land use

While mining is a major component of the northern Canadian economy, including the contemporary mixed economy of Aboriginal communities, it often leaves legacies of environmental and economic transformation that persist after closure. The legacies of historical mines in northern Canada challenge industry claims of sustainability. This thesis addresses how industrial mineral development and closure continue to affect local environments and economies after abandonment. The abandoned Pine Point mine in the Northwest Territories provides a case study for explaining the ongoing relationships among land cover, land use, and the post-industrial landscape. Drawing from landscape ecology and micropolitical ecology, I adopt an interdisciplinary approach to examine environmental and socioeconomic changes in the wake of industrial development and closure at Pine Point. The results show that passive reclamation is not sufficient for restoring ecological function in a subarctic environment. Land use, however, persists as land users adapt to the post-industrial landscape despite grave concern about its environmental condition. If mining is to be considered sustainable, decommissioning and reclamation must explicitly account for long-term environmental transformation as well as ongoing post-industrial land use, particularly in Aboriginal contexts.

Examples of “land stewarship” in Brazil. The “Projecto Sempre Viva” (Mucugê-Bahia)

In recent years the concept of "Land Stewardship" has gained a great importance. In short, it means that local entities and individuals can protect enclave of high ecological and cultural value. This vision has been effective in some places in the world with success. For example, the “Projeto Sempre Viva”, created in the town of Mucugê, a place located in one of Brazil´s most renowned Natural Protected Areas: the Chapada Diamantina (State of Bahia). We had looked over the available information about this project on the Internet, as well as a personal visit that was made to the site to know it and to have the possibility to talk to their managers. On this basis, it has been reached to the conclusion that this project, born to protect a Sempre Viva´s endemic species in danger of extinction, has turned into an important site for tourism and environmental education, completed with the preservation of the cultural identity of this region which is linked to diamond mining.