Mining Impacts · impact
Subsidence
Ground · Both
- Mitigation
- Backfilling with paste or waste rock, leaving support pillars, and mapping old workings so that what is above them can be planned around.
- Category
- Ground
- Timescale
- Both
Mechanism
Taking rock out leaves a void, and the ground above it eventually comes down — gently as a trough over longwall panels, abruptly as a sinkhole where a solution cavity or an old shaft collapses. Solution mining of salt and potash dissolves the cavity in the first place, so the ground keeps moving long after work stops.
Where
UndergroundIn-situ leachBrine
Open on the Mining Impacts shelf — the interactive card, the filters, and everything alongside it.