The Stellarton Surface Coal Mine is an

open pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

reclamation

coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

located in

Stellarton Stellarton is a town located in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. It is adjacent and to the south of the larger town of New Glasgow. In pioneer times the area was called Coal Mines Station, and from 1833 until 1889, it was known as Albion Min ...

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

. It is owned and operated by

Pioneer Coal Limited Pioneer Coal Limited is a Canadian mining company based in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. It was founded in 1980 by John Chisholm, owner of Nova Construction Company Limited. The company currently operates two open pit coal mines: * Stellarton Surface ...

Operations

The mine began operations in 1980 and coal is extracted using truck and shovel mining. Coal mining has taken place in this area of

Pictou County Pictou County is a county in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. It was established in 1835, and was formerly a part of Halifax County from 1759 to 1835. It had a population of 43,657 people in 2021, a decline of 0.2 percent from 2016. Furthermo ...

for more than 400 years, and until the Donkin Mine reopened in 2017, the pit was the only operating coal mine in Nova Scotia.

Underground mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

previously took place in the area where the Stellarton pit is located and occasionally remnants of the abandoned tunnels from underground mining can be seen on the pit walls. Once coal has been extracted, the surface is restored through

reclamation Reclaim, reclaimed, reclaimer, reclaiming or reclamation means "to get something back". It may refer to: * Land reclamation, creating new land from oceans, riverbeds, or lake beds * Dedesertification, reversing of the land degradation in arid ...

. In 2014 Pioneer Coal applied to modify the "method of extraction" to include explosives, allowing them to blast through of rock to access a seam of coal. The application has raised concerns with the local community. The mine produces about 300,000 tonnes of coal per year. Its principal customer is the

Trenton Generating Station __NOTOC__ The Trenton Generating Station or Trenton GS is a 310 MW Canadian thermal generating station located in the town of Trenton, Nova Scotia. The plant is located on the banks of the East River in the town of Trenton. There are a total of ...

. The mine is slated to cease operating in 2019.

References

External links

*{{commonscat-inline Surface mines in Canada Mines in Nova Scotia Coal mines in Canada Pictou County 1980 establishments in Nova Scotia

Operations

See also

References

External links