Summary

This review gives information about surface mines. Topics discussed include surface mine models, open pit closure, strip mining, dredge mining, and oil sands. Several links to photos, books, case studies and software are given.

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INTRODUCTION

To speed your data gathering, information sifting, and decision making, here is a fast overview of many hours trawling the web for links on Surface Mines, of the open pit variety, the strip mine, and dredge variety.

This is not exhaustive. It is simply what I found, liked, and collated. If you think your link, knowledge, experience, services, or supplies should be noted here---please contact me.

First a little on terminological precision. Wikipedia notes that there are four types of surface mining: strip mining; open-pit mining; mountaintop removal; and dredging. In this review I talk only of surface open pit mining and strip mining; although we add a short piece on dredge mining at the end for closure.