Types of Mining and Fracking
Maria Panagiotopoulos
Surface:
strip
open pit
mountain top removal
examples: used to mine coal, Mountaintop subtraction replaces previously steep landscape with a plane surface.
Bad mining can ignite coal fires and release greenhouse gasses and toxic chemicals. mining releases coal mine methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
Subsuface:
Slope
Drift
Shaft
Examples: Drift mining utilizes access tunnels, slope mining uses diagonally sloping access shafts and shaft mining consists of access shafts.
Subsurface mines produce large amounts of environmentally hazardous acid mine drainage
fracking- the process of extracting natural gas from shale rock layers deep within the earth
A well is drilled vertically to the depth it wants, then turns ninety degrees and continues horizontally for several thousand feet into the shale
Approximately 40,000 gallons of chemicals are used per fracturing
It takes 1-8 million gallons of water to complete each fracturing job.