Mining

A new paper published in Science says that as glacier ice melts, new land and rivers are being revealed in the ice-covered transboundary region shared by northern B.C., Alaska, and the Yukon. The peer-reviewed paper was a collaboration among researchers from Simon Fraser University, the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs' Office, the University of Montana Flathead Lake Biological Station, and Taku River Tlingit First Nation.Researchers say that for Pacific salmon, these emerging territories may present an opportunity to offset…

Copper mines like Rio Tinto's Bingham Canyon mine on the outskirts of Salt Lake City are on the frontline of America's transition to clean energy.Global demand for copper, a major component of electric vehicles, is expected to grow from 25 million metric tons to nearly 49 million metric tons by 2035, according to S&P Global.But miners face a multitude of issues as they ramp up production, including addressing the concerns of local stakeholders, mitigating environmental damage and operating in remote regions of the…

Surface mining extents for 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020 draped on 2020 Landsat 8 OLI natural color imagery. Credit: Remote Sensing (2023). DOI: 10.3390/rs15184597 As the demand for rare earth elements increases world-wide, so too do the mining activities associated with rare earth element extraction. Rare earth elements are listed as 15 elements on the periodic table constituting what is known as the lanthanide series, ranging…

A miner's hand holds a pebble-sized bit of mercury-covered gold ore over a bowl of water. The picture was taken at a small-scale gold mine in Senegal. Credit: Jacqueline Gerson Jacqueline "Jackie" Gerson knows very well how "artisanal gold mining" sounds to people who haven't heard the phrase before. "It sounds quaint, right?"…

Deep sea mining could pose a danger to local jellyfish populations, a new study suggests. The first-of-its-kind study was conducted by researchers and marine ecologists and aims to see just how much deep sea mining affects the wildlife that calls the sea floor home.There are, of course, several benefits to mining the ocean floor, including access to rare minerals and elements that we can’t find in high concentrations above the ocean surface. However, mining under the sea could actually cause harm to deep sea…

Americans tossed 292.4 million tons of trash into landfills in 2018, or about 5 pounds of garbage per person per day. Once in a landfill, much of that trash undergoes some wild chemistry, often polluting the surrounding area. But amid all the stinking refuse is potentially valuable material, and some environmentalists and engineers see landfills as a resource to be tapped. This Summer’s Hottest UmbrellaLandfill mining is the process of uncapping a landfill and sifting through its cells of garbage to reclaim any sort of…

November 18, 2023 @ 3:33 PM Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down with Dua Lipa for a rare podcast interview on her show “Dua Lipa: At Your Service.” The pair covered a wide range of topics, but the one that’s drawn listeners’ attention is Lipa being the first to publicly ask Cook about the use of child labor to mine cobalt for “my new iPhone 15,” a question the CEO was willing to answer… kind of. Lipa said, “I came across some, like, I guess distressing articles about young kids mining cobalt in the Democratic Republic…

Updated Nov. 14, 2023 5:10 am ETCanadian miner Teck Resources said it is selling its coal assets to a group led by mining and trading giant Glencorein a deal that would cap a lengthy saga and be one of the biggest in mining this year.The transaction would value the business at around $9 billion. Under the terms of the deal, Switzerland-based Glencore will pay $6.93 billion for a 77% stake. Japan-based steelmaker Nippon will hold a 20% stake after converting existing holdings in some of Teck’s coal operations and paying…

Exxon Mobilsaid Monday it is starting to drill for lithium in Arkansas and aims to become a major U.S. supplier for makers of electric-vehicle batteries by 2030.  The Texas-based oil company’s entrance into the lithium business, first reported by The Wall Street Journal in May, is an effort to reposition itself long-term for the advent of EVs and electrification in the transportation sector, which it dominated for decades as one of the world’s largest fuel makers. Lithium is a key ingredient in making batteries for EVs,…

You ought to have heard this many times that agencies like Facebook, or Google can listen to our thoughts and spot us as we move approximately our day. Don’t worry, we don’t want any other Edward Snowden. But it is not that these companies track us down on a daily basis but just relate to our daily activities, which are quite predictable. This is what Social Media Mining is! Where big companies collect data indirectly and use it in a way to improve our quality of life. But is this good or bad, can it be harmful to the…