Global mine waste & secondary resources — tailings,
waste rock, heaps, slag and quarry waste, each classified from what its source states.
Global Mine Waste & Secondary ResourcesEXPERIMENTAL v0.1
Mine waste is not only a liability. What a mine could not
recover fifty years ago is still in the ground it left behind, and the analytical methods that
would find it did not exist yet. This map locates waste facilities worldwide, links each one to
the mine that produced it, and states which elements are worth testing for — and on what evidence.
This screens; it does not measure.
Where an element is marked as supported by mineralogy, that means the parent deposit is reported
to contain a mineral known to host it. It does not mean the element is present in this waste, and
it never implies a concentration or an economic resource. Only laboratory analysis establishes
that, and where such analysis exists it is labelled MEASURED.
AllTailings onlySecond-ChancePNEM SpainCRMA / EU
Evidence for this elementAll evidenceObserved in the wasteMeasured onlyElement itself reportedConstituent of a named mineralHost-mineral supportedDeposit-model inferredSecondary only
Marker sizereflects how many
elements the parent deposit is reported to host that the mine was not chasing. Click any marker
for its full record.
Periodic table — what is worth testing, and where
Select an element to filter the map to facilities whose parent deposit is reported to contain a mineral that hosts it.
