What are mine tailings?

Answer 1

Mine tailings are what is left over after the mining operation has extracted what they were mining for (coal, iron, gold, etc.).

Answer 2

Most commonly seen in areas where large scale dredging has taken place tailings are the remnants of the mining process. Most of the time tailings consist of large rock and gravel but in rare occassions there have been places where the tailings consist of dirt and loose gravel. In these rare occassions vegitation has the opportunity to make a quick comeback but in the more common case where tailings consist of large rock and gravel it takes years sometimes decades or centuries to come back. I lived in Alaska for 19 years and can remember seeing the piles of "rubble" that were left from the dredges that had passed through the area 60 years before. --devoid of plant life and barren.

Strip mining and placermining also creates tailings but to a much more localized degree. and all are equally harmfull to the ecosystems in which the mining takes place.

Answer 3

Usually ores and other materials that are dug up in mining operations are embedded within other rocks or materials. At the mine site, the material or ore that they are trying to mine is processed to remove the unused rock.

This unused rock is what mine tailings are.