There is more than a century’s worth of mine waste in B.C. from legacy and operating mines, and some of that waste contains valuable critical minerals that can now be extracted using various metals remediation and recovery methods.
Coal mine tailings, for example, can contain small amounts of rare earths, like yttrium, and mine waste from copper mines can contain not only residual amounts of copper, but other metals as well.
But identifying the location of 1,000 mine sites, tailings ponds and waste rock dumps and assessing their economic potential presented a challenge – a challenge Geoscience BC has taken on.
Earlier this week, during the Association of Mineral Exploration (AME) Roundup conference, Geoscience BC announced the publication of a new inventory of legacy and operating mine sites and waste dumps – something that will be of interest to both mining companies and cleantech companies in the mineral recovery space.
Working with Purple Rock Inc. and Foresight Canada, Geoscience BC accessed data from the BC Geological Survey and the BC Abandoned Mines Branch to develop a new searchable digital database of potential mineral recovery sites, with a ranking system that identifies sites most likely to have critical minerals on Canada’s Critical Minerals List.
“The digital compilation includes mineral occurrences, geographic, environmental and infrastructure data to produce a geospatial project containing the location and known characteristics of more than 1,000 tailings and waste rock sites from more than 500 current and legacy mining sites with critical minerals,” Geoscience BC says in a press release.
According to a Geoscience BC spokesperson, the two metals with most economic recovery potential from mine waste in B.C. is likely to be copper and molybdenum.
“The results of this project provide a key starting tool for industry, government, communities and indigenous groups to understand B.C.’s potential for remining or extracting minerals or materials from closed mines or the unprocessed rock left behind from mining,” said Geoscience BC vice president of minerals Christa Pellet.
A number of B.C. cleantech companies, like Tersa Earth, are in the mine waste remediation and mineral recovery space, so the new inventory could be of great interest to companies in search of demonstration projects.
“This project is truly transformative,” said Foresight Canada regional director Kylie Williams.
“Purple Rock’s detailed mapping of waste rock piles and tailings, combined with Foresight’s additional data on milling, power, infrastructure, labour, and cleantech availability, lays a necessary foundation for cleantech adoption in mining and positions B.C. to provide critical minerals to global supply chains and lead in reconciliation through sustainable economic development.”
