Biological Engineering of Marine Tailings Beds

Abstract

At coastal and marine mines, tailings are discharged to the sea, often in enormous amounts, and they form beds similar in many ways to the deposits naturally settling there (see Chap. 6). We should expect these tailings beds to be colonised by marine organisms natural to the area in ways comparable to the biological colonisation of mine waste on land. However, compared to the enormous literature about reclamation processes on land, there is virtually no published information on the reclamation of submerged and shoreline mine tailings. This chapter collates what little information is available, largely from limited distribution reports. We also raise issues about reclaiming marine-discharged tailings beds to biologically productive ecosystems. This is what we mean by the term “biological engineering” in our context.