Biology ETDs

Publication Date

12-11-1978

Abstract

Factors that could be detrimental to vegetative stabilization of uranium mine and mill waste material were examined. Physical and chemical analyses of materials from an open-pit uranium mine and material from three inactive mill tailing piles in New Mexico were performed. Analyses for selected trace elements in mill tailing material and associated vegetation from piles in New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah were also performed. Field and laboratory experiments identified problems associated with establishing vegetation on spoil material. Problems of uptake and concentration of toxic elements by plants growing on specific spoil material were also identified.

Ecological observations in conjunction with physical and chemical analyses of specific geologic units, which form the overburden and waste dumps at the open-pit mine, identified a specific geologic material that, if segregated and placed on the surface of the dumps, would pose the least set of problems for a revegetation program. A pilot revegetation project verified that segregation and use of specific geologic material in the overburden could be utilized successfully and economically for re-establishment of native vegetation on mine waste material.

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Biology

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

UNM Biology Department

First Committee Member (Chair)

Loren David Potter

Second Committee Member

Roger Yates Anderson

Third Committee Member

Illegible

Fourth Committee Member

William Clarence Martin

Comments

Grant from Department of Energy

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