Determination of Threshold Velocity and Entrainment Rates from a Copper Tailings Pond

Wind erosion is a phenomenon that has plagued many people for centuries. There are many sources for wind erosion, such as agricultural farmlands, deserts, coal piles and mining areas.

Significant research has been conducted on wind erosion, especially on paved and unpaved roads, construction sites and quarry areas. Open storage coal piles have also been a target for wind erosion studies, as a lot of power plants bum coal to produce power. However, this study does not include any of the sources mentioned above. This study involves wind erosion from a copper tailings pond of a closed down copper mining and smelting operations facility. The tailing pond has dried up over the years leaving behind a pond of dried up tailings that looks like a desert. One particular site that had such a problem was the iron mine located in Northern Michigan. Winds of up to 60 km/hr resulted in a dust storm that reduced visibility to less than 1 meter in some places (Tailings and Mine waste 1998).

This study was conducted to determine the threshold velocity for entrainment of the tailings by the wind and also the effects of moisture on the entrainment rate of the tailings. The experiment was performed in a wind tunnel with a height of 30 cm, width of 10 cm and total length of 250 cm.