The global mining industry is growing in footprint and continues to occupy new locations globally in support of the energy transition. Associated mining activities like land clearing, blasting and truck haulage are known to generate dust, creating a range of environmental and health hazards. However, research tracking the global spatial and temporal patterns of mine-related dust has been lacking. This study assesses global spatio-temporal patterns of mine dust and factors that influence those distributions both globally and in localized Australian contexts through generalized additive models (GAMs). Spatial patterns of mine dust are evaluated using Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA), and the results indicate significant geographic heterogeneity - elevated levels of Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) were identified in tropical mining areas in South Asia, West Africa, and Southeast Asia, whereas lower levels of AOD were observed in the United States and Australia. Our statistical analysis indicates that GAMs effectively captured the variability in AOD (global R2 = 0.71; local R2 = 0.62). However, ground-based PM₁₀ measurements were a more reliable indicator of site-specific mining activity, showing a stronger relationship with mine production (r = 0.6). This study highlights key data uncertainties and complexities influencing our understanding of the impacts of mine dust beyond the local scale. Notably, it highlights an inconsistent disconnect between mines influencing regional dust levels, versus regional dust levels impacting mine operations themselves. It also underscores the importance of developing a standardized method for on-site dust monitoring at all mines worldwide and an improved network of in-situ measurement stations in support of better outcomes for the environment and human health.

The demand for low-carbon energy to tackle the climate crisis requires large swathes of land to develop renewable energy infrastructure, such as wind, solar, geothermal, hydrogen, or pumped hydro. Claiming to avoid encroaching on already occupied landscapes where different forms of tenure exist, the energy industry is increasingly targeting closed and abandoned mine areas. This transformation not only promises to mitigate or address the ecological impact of mining but is also promoted as a means of local socio-economic development through employment creation, redressing energy poverty, and community benefit sharing within the renewable energy sector. However, these developments can have grave social and environmental impacts and thus may exacerbate transitional and intersectional inequalities and injustices. Hence, careful planning and stakeholder engagement are vital to ensuring that repurposing projects reflect the needs and values of impacted communities and the historical and political contexts of mining areas. Shedding light on the situation in Australia and Germany, two countries at the forefront of these new energy initiatives, this article presents perspectives from engineering and anthropology to discuss some of the social and environmental risks involved in the repurposing of mines. From these interdisciplinary conversations, we develop policy recommendations for a just energy transition and sketch some directions for future research.

The rapid expansion of electrification is driving soaring lithium demand, raising concerns about supply sustainability and ecological impacts. This study traces lithium flows across the Lithium Triangle and 27 other Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries, projecting sustainability through 2050 under alternative technology scenarios. Results show a major imbalance: in 2022, lithium exports (as lithium carbonate equivalent, LCE) exceeded imports (products containing lithium, converted to LCE) by over 100-fold, and will remain 10 times higher by mid-century. Technology-driven approach could mitigate impacts, avoiding up to 29 Mt of CO2 emissions, conserving 1384 Mm3 of water, and restoring 1973 km2 of land. Despite vast reserves, LAC holds only a marginal position in the global value chain. Moving from resource supplier to integrated actor will require sustainable mining, investment in local manufacturing, and expansion of recycling to secure economic gains alongside environmental resilience.

Global demands for nickel—a key energy transition metal—have notably risen in recent years, positioning Indonesia as the world’s major supplier. Nickel in Indonesia occurs in laterite ore deposits, and is extracted with open-pit mining, a process which induces land transformation of high carbon stock biomass sources such as forests. This study investigates the spatial and temporal impacts of nickel mining on land cover and biomass carbon stock by combining satellite imagery assessment with a national dataset of land cover classes and biomass carbon stock data from the national Forest Reference Emission Level (FREL) dataset. Focusing on the concession area between 2013 and 2022, 217 nickel mining concession areas within Indonesia were analyzed. Our results revealed that nickel mining activities induced 53% of the forest land transformation within the concession area. By 2022, approximately 6.9 million tCO _2 were emitted from the land use induced by nickel mining activities, more than double the amount in 2013. If continued unabated, the trend could reach 7%–12% of the allowable Nationally Determined Contribution target in Indonesia for the land use sector in 2030. Moreover, we observed delays in the official recognition of mining areas in the national land cover map, which relies on manual visual interpretation and potentially leads to misclassification. Additionally, several instances of mining outside officially designated concession zones were detected, indicating governance gaps and regulatory compliance issues. These findings highlight the need for disclosure by mining companies and stronger governance in monitoring and regulating mining extraction activities to address the environmental cost of the energy transition.

Global nickel demand is projected to double by 2050 to support low-carbon technologies and renewable energy production. However, biomass carbon emissions from clearing vegetation for nickel mining are rarely included in corporate sustainability reports or considered in mineral sourcing decisions. Here, we compiled data for 481 nickel mines and undeveloped deposits to show that the footprint of nickel mining could be 4 to 500 times greater than previously reported (depending on the mine site), and thus the environmental impacts of nickel products, including batteries, have been underestimated to date. We found large variation in biomass losses among mines, and, in many cases, these unaccounted carbon emissions were significant relative to other Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from nickel extraction and processing. Reporting emissions from biomass losses from mining is key for strategic decision making on where to source nickel needed for effective climate action.

Global metal extraction is increasing, owing to rising mineral demands from infrastructure development and the growing need for metal-intensive renewable energy technologies to mitigate climate change and phase out coal mining. However, extraction of metal ores also drives impacts on land use, water resources and biodiversity. In this Review, we evaluate mining trends of 47 metal ores between 1970 and 2022 and explore the environmental consequences. Global extraction of crude metal ores has nearly quadrupled, from 2.7 gigatonnes (Gt) in 1970 to almost 9.4 Gt in 2022, with the greatest increases in Oceania (+1,222%), South America (+929%) and Asia (+285%). Ore-specific mining activities are generally concentrated, with the top-five producers contributing on average 82.7% of the global supply in 2022. The impacts of mining are also concentrated. In 2022, about 50% of the 100,000 km2 global mining areas were located in Russia, China, Australia, the United States and Indonesia. Mining-induced water consumption, pollution and biodiversity loss substantially affect local ecosystems, with tropical rainforests and deserts being especially vulnerable. Around 70% of global metal extraction is linked to international supply chains. Enhanced environmental assessments, stricter implementation of policies, and coordinated actions across sectors throughout supply chains (mining, processing, consumers and financial markets) can help to mitigate the environmental impacts of mining. Global metal ore extraction has increased almost fourfold since 1970. This Review explores the drivers, patterns and environmental consequences of the growth of metal ore extraction and discusses interventions to reduce negative impacts across metal supply chains.

The purpose of this study is to obtain estimates of ground surface rupture and ground motion hazards at standardised scales useful for general reference and regional comparisons of dams (n = 548) registered with the Australian National Committee on Large Dams (ANCOLD). Geospatial and statistical methods are used to investigate the exposure of dams to seismic hazard from 409 faults in the Geoscience Australia Neotectonic Features Database (NFD). We identify 216 faults at distances less than 100 km from 428 dams and measure 4055 fault-to-dam distances. At least 31 dams are located within 1 km of NFD fault traces and at least 16 of these dams could reside within NFD primary fault zones. Estimates of NFD maximum moment magnitudes (M w,max ) from fault area and length regressions range from 5.6 ≤ M w ≤ 7.9. Average (AD) and maximum (MD) NFD fault displacements for M w,max events range from 0.3 m ≤ AD ≤ 4.4 m and 0.9 m ≤ MD ≤ 8.4 m. Distance-probability regressions for distributed ground surface rupture suggest approximately 40 dams have a ≥ 10% probability of ground surface rupture occurring in the area encompassing the dam in a M w,max event. Peak ground accelerations (PGA) and pseudo-spectral acceleration at 1.0 s (PSA[1.0 s]) are estimated for M w,max at dam sites using the same set of ground motion models (GMMs) for the 2023 National Seismic Hazard Assessment (NSHA23), assuming engineering rock site conditions with a time-averaged shear wave velocity between the surface and 30 m sediment depth (VS30) of 760 m/s. Of the 4055 M w,max scenarios considered in total, 3579 M w,max scenarios produce 85th percentile PGA ≥ 0.1 g at dam sites and 2844 scenarios produce 85th percentile PSA[1.0 s] ≥ 0.1 g. Comparison with 1:5,000 annual exceedance probability (AEP) PGA and PSA[1.0 s] estimates from the NSHA23 indicate there are 404 out of 428 dams where NFD M w,max PGA are greater than NSHA23 values, and 422 instances where PSA[1.0] > NSHA23. Proximity to NFD faults imparts a first-order control on relative hazard. A large increase in the number of identified NFD faults over the last decade suggests further research will continue to increase NFD fault populations. NFD fault slip rates and M w,max are important parameters in seismic hazard analysis for many dams but exhibit large epistemic and aleatoric uncertainties. Improving the characterisation of NFD faults through acquisition of direct fault-specific seismic hazard information (e.g., single-event displacements, slip rates, inter-event times, frequency-M w distributions, segmentation scenarios) will assist with hazard profiling for many ANCOLD dams.

Weather-enhanced sulphide oxidation accelerates CO2 release into the atmosphere. However, over extended geological timescales, ultramafic and mafic magmatic minerals may transition from being sources of CO2 emissions to reservoirs for carbon sequestration. Ultramafic and mafic mine tailings present a unique opportunity to monitor carbon balance processes, as mine waste undergoes instantaneous and rapid chemical weathering, which shortens the duration between CO2 release and absorption. In this study, we analysed 30 vanadium-titanium magnetite mine tailings ponds with varying closure times in the Panxi region of China, where ~60 years of mineral excavation and dressing have produced significant outcrops of mega-mine waste. Our analysis of anions, cations, saturation simulations, and 87Sr/86Sr; δ13C and δ34S isotopic fingerprints from mine tailings filtrates reveals that the dissolution load of mine tailings may depend significantly on early-stage sulphide oxidation. Despite the abundance of ultramafic and mafic minerals in tailings, dolomite dominates chemical weathering, accounting for ~79.2% of the cationic load. Additionally, due to sulphuric-carbonate weathering, the filtrates undergo deacidification along with sulphide depletion. The data in this study suggest that pristine V-Ti-Fe tailings ponds undergo CO2 emissions in the first two years but subsequently begin to absorb atmospheric CO2 along with the filtrates. Our results provide valuable insights into monitoring weathering transitions and carbon balance in ultramafic and mafic rocks.

Lithium is vital for the decarbonization transition. With Australian mines supplying over 50% of global demand, building greener lithium mining in Australia is essential. Therefore, this study conducts a site-specific assessment of all seven Australian mine sites in the latest decade, examining factors such as ore yield, grade, mining costs, and emission intensity. Our analysis reveals that while Greenbushes is the lowest emitter, its limited lifespan, along with the planned expansions of other sites that have higher emission intensities, can significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions from the lithium supply in the future. To address the challenges of emissions and fluctuating lithium prices, Australia must make a sustainable strategic shift toward greater involvement in the downstream supply chain, including refining and manufacturing. A regional comparison with the Lithium Triangle highlights Australia’s mining strength and potential to become a greener lithium producer by diversifying its energy mix with renewables, adopting advanced technologies for low-grade ore recovery, and implementing strong policy frameworks to support collaborative mid-sized and emerging projects. These approaches will strengthen Australia’s role in the decarbonization transition, environmentally and economically.

Copper is one of the most critical minerals for the global transition to low-carbon energy. However, as copper mining activities expand worldwide, they often result in significant environmental impacts, yet the monitoring approaches and up-to-date databases remain limited. In this study, we present a high-resolution, site-specific database of global copper mining activities, developed using a machine learning approach that leverages Earth observation images and various dispersed data sources. Our database encompasses approximately 1,313 copper mines, covering an area of 7,267 km2, and includes detailed monitoring of operational land use categories such as open pits, waste rock dumps, and tailings storage facilities as of 2022. Additionally, we analyse land use intensity at each mine site based on inferences of copper production levels to facilitate comprehensive comparisons and improved management strategies. This database can help to reveal the adverse impacts of copper mining behind the energy transition. The dataset is available for download from https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28680863.v1 .

AbstractThe spatiotemporal extension/expansion of mine areas is affected by multiple factors. So far, very little has been done to examine the interaction between mine areas and political or economic realities. The (ultra‐)mafic magmatic mines in China played a specific role in supporting national development and providing an ideal research subject for monitoring their interrelationship. In this study, remote sensing and mining‐related GIS data were used to identify and analyze 1233 (ultra‐)mafic magmatic mine area polygons in China, which covered approximately 322.96 km2of land and included a V–Ti–Fe mine, a copper–nickel mine, a chromite mine, an asbestos mine, and a diamond mine. It was found that (1) the areal expansion of mines is significantly related to the mine types, perimeter, topography, and population density. (2) The mine area variation also reflects market and policy realities. The temporal expansion of the mine area from 2010 to 2020 followed an S‐shaped pattern (with the turning point occurring in 2014), closely related to iron overcapacity and tightened mining policies. (3) The complexity (D) of the mine area may reflect mine design and excavation practices. To be specific, lowerDindicates early‐stage or artisanal/small‐scale mining, whereas higherDrepresents large‐scale mining. This study demonstrates that the detailed mapping of mine land can serve as an indicator to implement mining‐related market and policy changes. The (ultra‐)mafic mines area data set can be accessed athttps://zenodo.org/record/7636616#.Y-p0uXaZOa0.

As the race to extract minerals and metals for clean-energy technologies accelerates, researchers must take more steps to map and study mines globally. As the race to extract minerals and metals for clean-energy technologies accelerates, researchers must take more steps to map and study mines globally.

The mining industry plays a pivotal role in the global transition towards clean energy, driven by the escalating demand for critical elements like lithium. However, this growth raises profound environmental concerns, particularly regarding land use, global warming potential, water consumption, acidification, eutrophication, and toxicity. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has historically relied on approximations and theoretical methods, resulting in systematic underestimations of these impacts. This study begins to address part of this discrepancy by leveraging remote sensing technologies to gather empirical evidence. Focusing on the Greenbushes mining site in Australia, a comprehensive investigation was conducted to quantitatively evaluate the direct land use impact from satellite imagery over the life of the project. Comparative analyses were performed against various mid-point Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methods. The findings unequivocally reveal a substantial under-reporting of the land use impact, highlighting the critical need for more accurate assessments in the context of mining activities. This research underscores the importance of empirical data in refining our understanding of the environmental footprint associated with mining operations, particularly in the critical context of clean energy transition. The study emphasises the imperative to reevaluate and adjust existing approaches to accurately account for the full scope of environmental impacts associated with mining operations.

Mostly produced as a by-product of zinc (Zn) mining, cadmium (Cd) is used in solar photovoltaic cells, battery storage, alloys, pigments, plating, and in nuclear reactors. However, it is also a regulated toxic substance with a long history of environmental and health impacts. As the mining of both Zn and Cd will need to increase to support the global energy transition, the status of Cd as either a resource or a pollutant has major implications for global supply chains and environmental management. Here, we present a new global, site-specific database and analysis of Cd resources in Zn-bearing mineral deposits and mines. Our database, which exceeds past Cd studies in scope, transparency and replicability is made available in full to support future assessments of Cd and Zn resources, mine production and associated risks. It includes 927 sites subject to detailed geological data compilation and analysis. Collectively, these sites suggest a new global resource estimate of 3.3 Mt Cd (95% confidence interval: 2.7-6.1 Mt). A preliminary geospatial analysis of sites in our database and mine toxicity indicators was also conducted. It shows that: - A human population of approximately 3.27 million live within 10 km of sites containing Cd resources, - similar to 31% of the world's Cd resources sit within 20 km of International Union for the Conservation of Nature protected areas, and - Some 28% of Cd mobilised annually by mining originates from areas hosting seasonal or permanent surface water cover. As similar to 27% of Cd resources are in countries that do not refine it, our study highlights the need for further research exploring global Cd trade flows and associated emissions. Heavy metal pollution in mining and metal production regions is an ongoing challenge, and our global dataset refines our understanding of its magnitude and distribution.

National inventories of mineral resources invariably exclude critical minerals produced as smelter-refinery by-products due to insufficient data. This study addresses this gap through the development of a comprehensive database of Australia's critical minerals resources in mines and mineral deposits combined with extensive geochemical data analysis. We provide a description of how such a database can be constructed for any country using publicly available information and consider a range of uncertainties arising from the use of proxy data to estimate critical mineral grades. A detailed analysis of Australian critical mineral resource endowments is presented alongside a review and discussion of reporting mechanisms and transparency. Our results show that despite statistical uncertainties, data complexities and limited prior accounting, estimated Australian endowments of a range of critical metals which currently remain unreported are likely to be substantial (e.g., an additional 4.2 Mt Co). This Australian case study suggests that the global development of similar databases is likely to reveal substantially greater endowments of critical metals than previously recognised, providing confidence in the ability to simplify the previously complex assessment of critical minerals required for the modern world's technological needs.

Mineral resources are essential for reaching net-zero ambitions by 2050. There is a rising diversity of metals in electricity generation and storage technologies, as well as for mobility technologies. However, little is known about the future supply of minor elements historically mined in low volumes such as indium, tellurium, germanium, or tantalum. Those minor elements are found in lower concentrations in the ores of major elements and therefore rarely form economic deposits on their own. Such elements are often produced as byproducts of a host (or "target commodity", which underpins the bulk of a mine's profitability) in ore, e.g., in porphyry ore, tellurium is a byproduct where copper is the host. As a result, the primary supply of those minor elements depends on the supply of the major elements. Such dependency has not been accounted for in scenarios of the mineral supply. To address this gap, we developed a methodology to harmonize scattered data of mineral resource estimates and to calculate the mass ratio between the byproduct and the host in ores and concentrates, called the byproduct-to-host (BtH) ratio. We collected crude ore tonnage and element grades, among other key data, from the state-of-the-art literature and publicly available mining company reports. Our data set covers 3422 deposits across 141 countries providing 22 275 BtH ratios. The future supply of minor elements can be derived by multiplying the primary production of host elements by the developed BtH ratios, noting the limitations of data representativity. The open-access nature of this work facilitates the enrichment and update of this data set in the coming years.

This geospatial dataset provides a compilation of findings from an evidence-based review of site-specific resource assessments of mining and metallurgical residues. Information pertaining to location, target material, geological knowledge, extractability, resource classification and stakeholder perspectives was collected from publicly available reports, articles, academic theses, and databases. The dataset includes 44 relevant data attributes from 64 mining and metallurgical sites in 27 countries. Resource classification is available for 38 sites. The dataset can be used by evaluators of recovery projects, authorities that provide permits, as well as by decision makers in support of developing regulatory policies. The dataset facilitates future addition of sites by the research community and can be further used as a starting point to bridge the estimates on recoverable quantities to the United Nations Framework Classification (UNFC). The UNFC is a universally applicable scheme for the sustainable management of all energy, primary and secondary mineral resources. Its use is stimulated by the European Commission and is intended to be adopted by geological surveys to harmonize the data on the availability of primary and secondary raw materials in Europe in future.

Weather-enhanced sulphide oxidation accelerates carbonate dissolution and contributes to atmospheric CO2. However, because of the lengthy geological timescales involved, the transition from CO2 degassing to sequestration is too long for direct observation. Ultramafic/mafic mine tailings provide a unique opportunity to identify these processes because mine waste undergoes instantaneous and rapid chemical weathering, which shortens the duration from CO2 degassing to absorption. In this study, we selected 30 ultramafic/mafic (V-Ti-Fe ore) mine tailing ponds with varying cessation times in the Panxi region, China, as an example, which have outcrops of mega-mine waste from ~60 years of mineral excavation and dressing. Based on the analysis of anions, cations, saturation simulations, and 87Sr/86Sr, δ13C, and δ34S isotopic fingerprints from mine-tailing filtrates, it was found that the dissolution load of mine tailings could significantly depend on early-stage sulphide oxidation. Dolomite dominates chemical weathering (accounting for ~79.2% of the cationic load), despite the abundance of ultramafic/mafic minerals in the mine tailings waste (~5.1% cationic flux sources from silicate weathering and ~15.7% from exotic input). In addition, owing to sulphuric-carbonate weathering, the filtrates undergo deacidification along with sulphide depletion. The data in this study suggest that pristine V-Ti-Fe tailing ponds should degas CO2 in the first two years, after which they are capable of removing atmospheric CO2 along with SO42- at levels less than ~3000 μmol/L (or TDS ≤ 700 mg/L). This study presents the natural objective of monitoring the weathering transition of CO2 in ultramafic and mafic rocks.