A geospatial approach to uncovering the hidden waste footprint of Lake Superior’s Mesabi Iron Range

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• 作者：John Baeten^a ; ^{jpbaeten@mtu.edu} ; Nancy Langston^b ; ^{nelans3@mtu.edu} ; Don Lafreniere^a ; ^{djlafren@mtu.edu}
• 关键词：Iron mining ; Tailings ; Lake Superior ; Mining landscapes ; Historical geographic information science (HGIS)
• 刊名：The Extractive Industries and Society
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：November 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：3
• 期：4
• 页码：1031-1045
• 全文大小：3372 K
• 卷排序：3

文摘

For decades, the Lake Superior Iron District produced a significant majority of the world’s iron used in steel production. Chief among these was the Mesabi Range of northern Minnesota, a vast deposit of hematite and magnetic taconite ores stretching for over 100 miles in length. Iron ore mining in the Mesabi Range involved three major phases: direct shipping ores (1847–1970s), washable ores (1907–1980s), and taconite (1947–current). Each phase of iron mining used different technologies to extract and process ore. Producing all of this iron yielded a vast landscape of mine waste. This paper uses a historical GIS to illuminate the spatial extent of mining across the Lake Superior Iron District, to locate where low-grade ore processing took place, and to identify how and where waste was produced. Our analysis shows that the technological shift to low-grade ore mining placed new demands on the environment, primarily around processing plants. Direct shipping ore mines produced less mine waste than low-grade ore mines, and this waste was confined to the immediate vicinity of mines themselves. Low-grade ore processing, in contrast, created more dispersed waste landscapes as tailings mobilized from the mines themselves into waterbodies and human communities.