Life of Mine Conference 2025
Unexpected piezometer trends in a tailings dam triggered an investigation that uncovered an overlooked variable in dissipation testing – the type of saturation fluid.
Australia’s mining sector could be overlooking a low-risk, high-reward tailings management method that’s been delivering stability and efficiency in other parts of the world for decades.
Seiche waves might be rare in mining, but new research shows they could pack enough force to overtop in-pit tailings storage facilities with serious consequences for operations, infrastructure, and safety.
At the Life of Mine | Mine Waste and Tailings Conference 2025 in Brisbane, University of Queensland PhD candidate Yue Xiong unveiled a promising alternative to radiation-based monitoring of tailings slurry pipelines - one that could make real-time density measurement safer, cheaper and more adaptable across mine sites.
When a Queensland flood swallowed a dragline and left an underground portal 60 metres underwater, Wade Ludlow knew mine levee design had to change.
When most miners think about tailings, they think about storage, risk management, and rehabilitation, but at the Life of Mine | Mine Waste and Tailings Conference 2025 in Brisbane, Clem Cahill, technical director - tailings at GHD, showed how the Kara Mine flipped that thinking on its head - turning its own waste stream into a high-performance construction material.
In one of Australia’s wettest mining regions, a carefully engineered soil cover has proven it can keep both water and oxygen out of acid-forming waste rock - even under two metres of rain a year.
