Publications by Year
Macroinvertebrate assemblages in rivers of the Australian dry tropics are highly variable.
Gut content and stable isotope analyses provide complementary understanding of ontogenetic dietary shifts and trophic relationships among fishes in a tropical river.
Importance of topography and topsoil selection and storage in successfully rehabilitating post-closure sand mines featuring pit lakes.
Recreational use of acidic pit lakes – human health considerations for post closure planning.
Pit lakes in Australia.
Proceedings of the International Mine Water Association (IMWA) Conference. Bunbury, Australia.
Upper and lower concentration thresholds for bioremediation of Acid Mine Drainage using bulk organic substrates.
The Collie Pit Lake District, Western Australia: An Overview.
Closure Planning in a Developing country – a case study from the Phu Kham Mine, Laos, South-east Asia.
Riverine breach and subsequent decant of an acidic pit lake: evaluating the effects of riverine flow-through on lake stratification and chemistry.
Breach and subsequent decant of an acidic brackish pit lake in the Collie Coal region in south-western Australia occurred during flooding of a pre-mining diverted eutrophic river. Inflowing fresher river water with…
Breach and subsequent decant of an acidic brackish pit lake in the Collie Coal region in south-western Australia occurred during flooding of a pre-mining diverted eutrophic river. Inflowing fresher river water with high alkalinity and nutrient concentrations settled over more saline and acidic pit lake water. This created a halocline with better mixoliminion water quality and monimolimnion water quality typical of the pre-breach lake. Flow-through may represent the best long-term mine closure option for this and other pit lakes in the state and internationally where pit lake water quality degrades over time when excised from regional water systems.
Pit lakes as evaporative ‘terminal’ sinks: an approach to best available practice mine closure.
Pit lakes may form when open cut mining operations extend below groundwater level and then fill at cessation of mining and associated dewatering operations by ground and surface water influx. Pit lake…
Pit lakes may form when open cut mining operations extend below groundwater level and then fill at cessation of mining and associated dewatering operations by ground and surface water influx. Pit lake hydrogeology may function as an evaporative “sink” when pit lake water evaporation rates exceed influx rates.Although not ideal closure, management of local surface and groundwaters contaminated by Acid and Metalliferous Drainage (AMD) through entrainment toward an evaporative terminal pit lake may provide a best-case scenario for protection of regional water resources required by typical mine closure time scales of hundreds to thousands of years. We present two case studies from Western Australia; the first where closure of above ground landforms such as waste dumps by covers would arguably not be successful over long terms (1,000 years or more) and another where Potentially Acid Forming waste (PAF) management is limited by current waste rock dump location and suitable cover materials. Pit lake water balance modelling indicates both case study pit lakes will function as hydraulic sinks if they are not backfilled above their equilibrium water levels. A best closure outcome for these pit lakes may be to be backfilled with PAF encapsulated with alkaline/neutral waste and then filled as rapidly as possible to minimise PAF oxidation and ensure an evaporative sink pit lake is formed.