JUSTIFYING THE METHOD OF COMPLEX RESEARCH OF THE RESIDUAL ORE STOCKS AT PROCESSED DEPOSITS BY THE GEOTECHNOLOGICAL METHOD

Abstract

Over the past decades, there has been a significant depletion of rich ore reserves. There are hundreds of explored deposits under the jurisdiction of enterprises and explo­ra­tion organizations that are not being worked out for various reasons: low content of useful components, complex mining and technical conditions, low power of deposits, etc. Hence the need to find and introduce new ways of producing metals from non–traditional sources of raw materials.

Non–traditional sources include oxidized, poor sulfide, and rich hard-to-enrich ores of non-ferrous metals. Substandard ores accumulate in dumps and remain in the depths of deposits as mining losses. These raw materials amount to many billions of tons and contain tens of millions of tons of non-ferrous metals.

Dumps of off-balance sheet and residual ores, as well as "waste" deposits, are a long-term source of environmental pollution due to the spontaneous leaching of copper, zinc, lead, molybdenum, arsenic, and other metals from them. A comprehensive solution to this most complex problem can be carried out with the help of a combined geotechnological method that has been developing and promising in recent decades. The most rational way to get rid of the harmful effects of such objects on the environment is to intensify the natural leaching process by organizing heap and underground leaching (HL and UL). Only after that, it is possible to reclaim the dumps and preserve the mines.