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In 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 ...
, overburden (also called waste or spoil) is the material that lies above an area that lends itself to economical exploitation, such as the rock, soil, and ecosystem that lies above a coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when dea ...
seam or ore
Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically containing metals, that can be mined, treated and sold at a profit.Encyclopædia Britannica. "Ore". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 7 Apr ...
body. Overburden is distinct from tailings
In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlie ...
, the material that remains after economically valuable components have been extracted from the generally finely milled ore. Overburden is removed during surface mining, but is typically not contaminated with toxic components. Overburden may also be used to restore an exhausted mining site during 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 ...
.
Interburden is material that lies between two areas of economic interest, such as the material separating coal seams within strata.Peng, Syd S. (1986) ''Coal Mine Ground Control'' (2nd edition), Wiley, New York, page 303,
Analogous uses
Overburden is also used for all soil and ancillary material above the bedrock horizon in a given area. By analogy, overburden is also used to describe the soil and other material that lies above a specific geologic feature, such as a buriedastrobleme
An impact structure is a generally circular or craterlike geologic structure of deformed bedrock or sediment produced by impact on a planetary surface, whatever the stage of erosion of the structure. In contrast, an impact crater is the sur ...
, or above an unexcavated site of archeological interest.
In particle physics
Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...
, the overburden of an underground laboratory may be important to shield the facility from cosmic radiation that can interfere with experiments.
In arboriculture
Arboriculture () is the cultivation, management, and study of individual trees, shrubs, vines, and other perennial woody plants. The science of arboriculture studies how these plants grow and respond to cultural practices and to their environme ...
, the word is also used for the soil over the top of the root
In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...
s of a tree collected from the wild.
See also
*Gangue
In mining, gangue () is the commercially worthless material that surrounds, or is closely mixed with, a wanted mineral in an ore deposit. It is thus distinct from overburden, which is the waste rock or materials overlying an ore or mineral body ...
* Spoil tip
A spoil tip (also called a boney pile, culm bank, gob pile, waste tip or bing) is a pile built of accumulated ''spoil'' – waste material removed during mining. These waste materials are typically composed of shale, as well as smaller quant ...
Notes
References
* Bates, R.L., and Jackson, J.A., (1987) ''Glossary of geology'' American Geological Institute, Alexandria, Virginia. * Haering, K. C.; Daniels W. L. and Roberts J. A. (1993) "Changes in mine soil properties resulting from overburden weathering" ''Journal of environmental quality'' 22(1): pp. 194–200. * McFee, W.W.; Byrnes, W.R. and Stockton, J.G. (1981) "Characteristics of coal mine overburden important to plant growth" ''Journal of environmental quality'' 10(3): pp. 300–308.External links
Mining terminology {{geology-stub