Nature, Properties and Utilization of Mine Spoils

The present work reveals the floristic assemblage vis-à-vis the physico-chemical characters of the over-burdens (OB) resulting from dumping of residues (spoil) from the opencast mining of coal at Ramnagore Colliery of Burdwan district, West Bengal. Analytical methods applied on spoil samples revealed similar values of pH. The organic carbon content of the spoils ranged from 0.84 (site C) to 12% (site A). The total nitrogen content was found to vary from 8 ppm to (site C) to 37 ppm (site E). The phosphate content was very low lying between 1.6 ppm (site D) to 13.6ppm (site B). The soils of these mining grounds is not suitable for plant growth, yet some tolerant species of Asteraceae and Fabaceae dominate the overburdens and show signs of remediation of the spoil to soil in the domain of ecological succession explainable with the help of tolerance model. In all, the present survey reveals from overburdens as many as 58 species of 52 genera belonging to 35 families of angiosperms covering 31 of dicots and 4 of monocots.