Terms

Engineered facility where waste rock is stored. Requires drainage control, stability assessment and closure planning.

Non-economic material removed during mining. May require environmental management if acid-generating.

Accounting framework quantifying inflows, outflows and storage in a mine site’s water system. Essential for environmental compliance.

Upper surface of groundwater saturation. Influences dewatering, pit design and geotechnical stability.

Breakdown of rocks by physical, chemical and biological processes. Produces oxide ores and supergene enrichment zones.

Ecosystem saturated with water; important for biodiversity and sometimes used in passive mine-water treatment.

Heavy equipment used for loading material in surface mines, stockpiles and processing plants.

Method of placing overburden or soil into long rows for later spreading or rehabilitation.

3D model using polygonal surfaces to represent orebodies, geological domains or pit shells. Foundation for resource estimation.

Parameter describing ore hardness in grinding, used to estimate energy consumption in mills.

Hard, fine-grained igneous rock (e.g., basalt, diabase) used as aggregate and sometimes forming structural controls for mineralisation.

General strike or orientation of geological features such as veins, faults or ore zones.