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Deep Impact: Effects of Mountaintop Mining on Surface Topography, Bedrock Structure, and Downstream Waters.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Ross, MRV; McGlynn, BL; Bernhardt, ES
Published in: Environmental science & technology
February 2016

Land use impacts are commonly quantified and compared using 2D maps, limiting the scale of their reported impacts to surface area estimates. Yet, nearly all land use involves disturbances below the land surface. Incorporating this third dimension into our estimates of land use impact is especially important when examining the impacts of mining. Mountaintop mining is the most common form of coal mining in the Central Appalachian ecoregion. Previous estimates suggest that active, reclaimed, or abandoned mountaintop mines cover ∼7% of Central Appalachia. While this is double the areal extent of development in the ecoregion (estimated to occupy <3% of the land area), the impacts are far more extensive than areal estimates alone can convey as the impacts of mines extend 10s to 100s of meters below the current land surface. Here, we provide the first estimates for the total volumetric and topographic disturbance associated with mining in an 11 500 km(2) region of southern West Virginia. We find that the cutting of ridges and filling of valleys has lowered the median slope of mined landscapes in the region by nearly 10 degrees while increasing their average elevation by 3 m as a result of expansive valley filling. We estimate that in southern West Virginia, more than 6.4km(3) of bedrock has been broken apart and deposited into 1544 headwater valley fills. We used NPDES monitoring datatsets available for 91 of these valley fills to explore whether fill characteristics could explain variation in the pH or selenium concentrations reported for streams draining these fills. We found that the volume of overburden in individual valley fills correlates with stream pH and selenium concentration, and suggest that a three-dimensional assessment of mountaintop mining impacts is necessary to predict both the severity and the longevity of the resulting environmental impacts.

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Published In

Environmental science & technology

DOI

EISSN

1520-5851

ISSN

0013-936X

Publication Date

February 2016

Volume

50

Issue

4

Start / End Page

2064 / 2074

Related Subject Headings

  • West Virginia
  • Water Quality
  • Water Pollutants, Chemical
  • Selenium
  • Rivers
  • Hydrogen-Ion Concentration
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Environmental Monitoring
  • Environment
  • Coal Mining
 

Citation

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Ross, M. R. V., McGlynn, B. L., & Bernhardt, E. S. (2016). Deep Impact: Effects of Mountaintop Mining on Surface Topography, Bedrock Structure, and Downstream Waters. Environmental Science & Technology, 50(4), 2064–2074. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5b04532
Ross, Matthew R. V., Brian L. McGlynn, and Emily S. Bernhardt. “Deep Impact: Effects of Mountaintop Mining on Surface Topography, Bedrock Structure, and Downstream Waters.Environmental Science & Technology 50, no. 4 (February 2016): 2064–74. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5b04532.
Ross MRV, McGlynn BL, Bernhardt ES. Deep Impact: Effects of Mountaintop Mining on Surface Topography, Bedrock Structure, and Downstream Waters. Environmental science & technology. 2016 Feb;50(4):2064–74.
Ross, Matthew R. V., et al. “Deep Impact: Effects of Mountaintop Mining on Surface Topography, Bedrock Structure, and Downstream Waters.Environmental Science & Technology, vol. 50, no. 4, Feb. 2016, pp. 2064–74. Epmc, doi:10.1021/acs.est.5b04532.
Ross MRV, McGlynn BL, Bernhardt ES. Deep Impact: Effects of Mountaintop Mining on Surface Topography, Bedrock Structure, and Downstream Waters. Environmental science & technology. 2016 Feb;50(4):2064–2074.
Journal cover image

Published In

Environmental science & technology

DOI

EISSN

1520-5851

ISSN

0013-936X

Publication Date

February 2016

Volume

50

Issue

4

Start / End Page

2064 / 2074

Related Subject Headings

  • West Virginia
  • Water Quality
  • Water Pollutants, Chemical
  • Selenium
  • Rivers
  • Hydrogen-Ion Concentration
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Environmental Monitoring
  • Environment
  • Coal Mining