Crossword clues for tailings
Wiktionary
n. 1 the waste that remains after the minerals have been extracted from an ore by ore dressing; gangue, slimes 2 (plural of tailing English)
Wikipedia
Tailings, also called mine dumps, culm dumps, slimes, tails, refuse, leach residue or slickens, are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction ( gangue) of an ore. Tailings are distinct from overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlies an ore or mineral body and is displaced during mining without being processed. The amount of tailings can be large, ranging from 90–98% for some copper ores to 20–50% of the other (less valuable) minerals.
The extraction of minerals from ore can be done two ways: placer mining, which uses water and gravity to concentrate the valuable minerals, or hard rock mining, which pulverizes the rock containing the ore and then relies on chemical reactions to concentrate the sought-after material. In the latter, the extraction of minerals from ore requires comminution, i.e., grinding the ore into fine particles to facilitate extraction of the target element(s). Because of this comminution, tailings consist of a slurry of fine particles, ranging from the size of a grain of sand to a few micrometres. Mine tailings are usually produced from the mill in slurry form, which is a mixture of fine mineral particles and water.
Usage examples of "tailings".
Disposal of the displaced dirt could be managed by detonating a nuke to create a cavern big enough to accept the tailings of the mole.
A fly-fisher led us to remains in the tailings near the riverbank yesterday.
Seen from the air, the tailings made snaky patterns curling back to the river again.
Dark as a hunter’s thoughts, not enough moon to help, the innocent romantic gleam of riffles on water between the tailings to the south and the low cliffs on the north side.
It was nearly two hours before noon and it occurred to me that the time might best be spent checking available routes to and from the tailings areas.
I’d marked several routes on the map, where I could get very near tailings or sandbars from Sacto to Folsom.
I decided my ’coon was a deer, and split my attention between the tailings and the innocent channel to my right.
I had wanted to see something safe, and I had seen it, and somewhere up in the tailings a fresh rumble told me the alien hunter was not far off.
Standing to gaze over the windshield I could see where the “deer” had moved over the tailings, leaving a dull dark gleam of moist trail on the stones.
I spotted more damp stones just below the crest of the tailings ravine and followed.
I applied half throttle down the slope, passed across the river near enough to spot telltale moisture climbing the tailings, and gunned the turbo.
I’d found a big water pocket, one of those places where a rockslide shuts off a small valley in the tailings and, over the years, becomes a dead lake.
But ugly as it was, on Earth, when you were through with a bucket of rock, the tailings just sat there, seldom harming anybody.
But it's not enough for the Oberoni, who hate tailings even more than captains do.
The girl stood between Ludlow and Bursar Tailings, with a look on her face even stonier than the troll's calcified countenance.