Hydrologic investigations of waste rock test piles in a permafrost environment ...
Three 14 m tall waste rock test piles were constructed at the Diavik Diamond Mine, NWT, located in a region of continuous permafrost. Since 2006, instrumentation in the piles has been used to develop datasets characterizing the long-term geochemical, hydrologic, and thermal evolution of the waste ro...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
University of British Columbia
2017
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0343973 https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0343973 |
| Summary: | Three 14 m tall waste rock test piles were constructed at the Diavik Diamond Mine, NWT, located in a region of continuous permafrost. Since 2006, instrumentation in the piles has been used to develop datasets characterizing the long-term geochemical, hydrologic, and thermal evolution of the waste rock. This thesis focuses on the hydrologic behaviour of two of the waste rock test piles; the Type III pile, considered as PAG material, and the Type I pile which was deconstructed in 2014, considered as NAG material. Complexity in the dataset is added by freeze-thaw processes occurring in this climate. The distribution of ice was mapped during the deconstruction of the Type I pile. Ice was found primarily in the batter regions, the cause of this was related to the infiltration profile across the crest and batters. Wind redistribution of snow results in a substantial snowpack on the batters with little on the crest. Infiltration through the crest occurs from rainfall alone, which is often low frequency and low ... |
|---|