Tailings
Overview
Gangue
In mining, gangue is the commercially worthless material that surrounds, or is closely mixed with, a wanted mineral in an ore deposit. The separation of mineral from gangue is known as mineral processing, mineral dressing or ore dressing and it is a necessary and often significant aspect of mining...
) of an ore
Ore
An ore is a type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals. The ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined to extract the valuable element....
. Tailings are distinct from overburden
Overburden
Overburden is the material that lies above an area of economic or scientific interest in mining and archaeology; most commonly the rock, soil, and ecosystem that lies above a coal seam or ore body. It is also known as 'waste' or 'spoil'...
or waste rock, which are the materials overlying an ore or mineral body that are displaced during mining without being processed.
The extraction of minerals from ore can be done two ways: placer mining
Placer mining
Placer mining is the mining of alluvial deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment....
, which uses water and gravity to extract the valuable minerals, or hard rock mining
Hard rock mining
Underground hard rock mining refers to various underground mining techniques used to excavate hard minerals, mainly those containing metals such as ore containing gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, nickel and lead, but also involves using the same techniques for excavating ores of gems such as...
, which uses pulverization of rock, then chemicals.
