LUIS VALENZUELA P, RAMON VERDUGO A, JOSE CAMPANA Z & CARMEN G OPAZO A


6. Tailings Dams


Mining began in the north of Chile during Inca times in the XVI century – and continues to the present day – with the country being the world’s largest producer of copper, and an important producer of molybdenum and other metals, as well as non-metallic products. It was with the start of the metal concentration process, probably during the beginning of the XIX century, that mine tailings started to be produced and deposited in dumps or discharged into creeks and even rivers. With production increasing over time, the need for controlled tailings deposits required the construction of dams to retain these tailings. Figure 35 shows the development of the accumulated volume of large tailings deposits according to the register of the government mining institution Sernageomin (Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería). It should be noted that the first important increase in mining activity came around 1950, and then in 1980 a sharp increase in deposited tailings that continues to the present day. In the same figure is shown the register of the main individual authorized tailings deposit. The characteristics and evolution of the design, construction and operation of tailings dams in Chile has been described in detail elsewhere[27,28,29,30,31].


Figure 35. Accumulated volume of tailings and authorized deposits[26]


6.1 Tailings dams built before 1965


There are few records of old tailings deposits, although several of them or their rests are still visible in the northern more desertic areas of Chile. Many of them were destroyed after abandonment and as a consequence of erosion, mud flows and probably also some earthquakes, being in general quite vulnerable because of their nature since most of them have been built with uncompacted tailings. In the present study only old tailings deposits that have been described in other literature or the press because their failure has affected human lives are commented on.


218 DAM ENGINEERING Vol XXXI Issue 3


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95