The Modeling of dams’ Stability Considering a Seismic Solicitation for the Tailings Ponds

Abstract

The activities associated to the mining industry are a major source of risk to the environment, but especially for the local community. In Romania, mining of precious metals (gold, silver and copper) have changed the landscape permanently, having a profound impact both locally and regionally. To determine the behavior of the material inside the tailings ponds dams in case of a major seismic event, two ponds were chosen as study cases, both belonging to Rosia Montana mining region: Valea Salistei tailings pond and Gura Rosiei tailings pond. Rosia Montana mining region is one of the most important Romanian mining regions is the Golden Quadrilateral of the Apuseni Mountains, which it delivered over time significant quantities of nonferrous metals, especially gold and silver. For the two study cases the dams' stability was evaluated by classical methods (analytical and numerical), each method using two hypothesis: static and pseudo-static (seismic). The aim of the study is to monitoring the values of the safety factors when the dams of the tailings ponds are affected by an major seismic event and to observe the potential sliding surfaces through the dam's body, the shear deformations distribution and the total displacements and distribution from the resulted graphics on two random sections chosen for each of the case studies.