Mine Waste

This layer delivers governments, industry and the community with accurate location information about more than 1000 Australian mining waste sites including tailings, wastes from mineral excavation, slag, fly ash and related mine waste materials. Data was compiled from a number of publicly-available sources. Where available, data includes mine waste name, waste type, waste status, rehabilitation status, storage type, structure type, associated deposit, deposit model and the associated deposit commodities.Mineral deposit models are modified from the Critical Mineral Mapping Initiative Mineral Deposit Classification Scheme (Hofstra et al., 2021).This layer identifies potential new opportunities for critical minerals supply from secondary sources. It helps support the sustainable and economic recovery of critical minerals extraction from, and appropriate management of, mine waste, contributing to Australia’s world-leading environmental, social and governance standards and supporting the transition to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.The layer has been produced in collaboration with RMIT University and The University of Queensland. Geoscience Australia acknowledges the mining companies who have supported our work in producing this layer.For more information about the mining waste data provided in this layer, please see the Australian Mine Waste Database record in Geoscience Australia’s Data and Publications catalogue - https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/147516.