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36-460: Protosolpuga carbonaria is an extinct species of solifuges, the only one of the genus Protosolpuga and the family Protosolpugidae . This Carboniferous camel spider was discovered in the Mazon Creek fossil beds of Illinois . This Chelicerata -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Mazon Creek fossil beds The Mazon Creek fossil beds are

72-600: A conservation lagerstätte found near Morris , in Grundy County, Illinois . The fossils are preserved in ironstone concretions , formed approximately 309  million years ago in the mid- Pennsylvanian epoch of the Carboniferous period. These concretions frequently preserve both hard and soft tissues of animal and plant materials, as well as many soft-bodied organisms that do not normally fossilize. The quality, quantity and diversity of fossils in

108-720: A fuel source for energy production. One of the highest, at least in Western Europe , is in Loos-en-Gohelle in the former mining area of Pas-de-Calais , France . It comprises a range of five cones, of which two reach 180 metres (590 ft), surpassing the highest peak in Flanders , Mont Cassel . One of the regions of Europe most "littered" with (mountainous) spoil heaps is the Donbas , in Ukraine , especially around

144-480: A new life in being thus exploited; for example, the flattened pile of residue from the 11/19 site of Loos-en-Gohelle. Conversely, others are painstakingly preserved on account of their ecological wealth. With the passage of time, they become colonised with a variety of flora and fauna , sometimes foreign to the region. This diversity follows the mining exploitation. In South Wales some spoil tips are protected as Sites of Special Scientific Interest because they provide

180-525: A spoil tip landslip caused the temporary closure of the Scunthorpe to Doncaster railway line in England. Landslides are rare in spoil tips after settling and vegetation growth act to stabilise the spoil. However, when heavy rain falls on spoil tips that are undergoing combustion, infiltrated water changes to steam ; increasing pressure that may lead to a landslide. In Herstal , Belgium, a landslide on

216-891: A tree-like horsetail relative, with common foliage names of Annularia and Asterophyllites , and a vine-like form called Sphenophyllum ; Pteridophyta as marattitalean tree ferns and Filicales and Zygopteridales understory ferns, with common foliage names of Pecopteris , Acitheca and Lobatopteris ; pteridosperms , also known as seed ferns, an extinct group of plants that grew both as trees and smaller shrubs, with features like pinnated leaves similar to true ferns, but reproduced by seeds instead of spores; they had common foliage names Mariopteris , Alethopteris , Odontopteris , Neuropteris , Laveineopteris and Macroneuropteris ; extinct gymnosperm Cordaites , believed to be closely related to and sharing many features with modern conifers . The Mazon Creek fauna has over 320 species of animals that have been identified. The fauna

252-433: A unique habitat for 57 species of Lichen , several of which are at risk due to their limited environment being developed and by vegetation development. For example, because the miners threw their apple or pear cores into the wagons, the spoil tips became colonised with fruit trees. One can even observe the proliferation of buckler-leaved sorrel (French sorrel – Rumex scutatus ), the seeds of which have been carried within

288-540: Is distinct from tailings , which is the processed material that remains after the valuable components have been extracted from ore. The phrase originates from the French word espoilelier , a verb conveying the meaning: to seize by violence, to plunder, to take by force. Spoil tips may be conical in shape, and can appear as conspicuous features of the landscape , or they may be much flatter and eroded, especially if vegetation has established itself. In Loos-en-Gohelle , in

324-465: Is divided into two components: the marine Essex fauna and the land and freshwater Braidwood fauna , that were washed into the deltaic sediments. The Essex fauna includes jellyfish , sea worms , snails , saltwater clams , shrimp , sea scorpions , chaetognaths , cephalopods and fish . The most common species found is the Essexella sea anemone. It consists of 42% of all fossil finds in

360-463: Is generally ineffective and injecting water under pressure counter-productive, because it carries oxygen, bringing the risk of explosion. The perceived weak environmental and public health effects of these fires leads generally to waiting for their natural extinction, which can take a number of decades. The problem of landslides in spoil tips was first brought to public attention in October 1966 in

396-631: Is known as authigenic mineralisation . The fossiliferous concretions are found in the Mazon River area of Grundy , Will , Kankakee , and Livingston counties. Additional fossils are found in LaSalle County, Illinois ; between the Vermilion River and Marseilles, Illinois . The ironstone concretions are recovered from exposures along streams, roadcuts and in active or abandoned coal mine areas. Most concretions are found among

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432-548: Is that of "El runam del Cogulló" (The Spoil Heap of El Cogulló), also known as "El runam de la democràcia" (The Slag Heap of Democracy) or "Montsalat" (Salty Mountain), in Sallent , which has already grown higher than the small mountain it was named after (El Cogulló, 474 meters above sea level). Richard Llewellyn 's novel How Green Was My Valley (1939) describes the social and environmental effects of coal mining in Wales at

468-581: The Aberfan disaster ; for example, it was discussed in a paper by Professor George Knox in 1927, but received little serious consideration by professional engineers and geologists — even to those directly concerned with mining. Also Aberfan disaster was not the first landslide with casualties: for example, in 1955 two successive landslides killed 73 people in Sasebo, Nagasaki in Japan. [ja] In February 2013,

504-533: The English speaking world when a spoil tip at Aberfan in Glamorgan , Wales , gave way, killing 144 people, 116 of them children. The tip was built over a spring, increasing its instability, and its height exceeded guidelines. Water from heavy rainfall had built up inside the tip, weakening the structure, until it suddenly collapsed onto a school below. The wider issue of stability had been known about prior to

540-600: The Illinois River near Morris , Grundy County, Illinois . The 25 to 30 meters of shale were formed approximately 309  million years ago , during the Pennsylvanian period. The fossiliferous concretions are usually found within the thickest deposits of the Francis Creek Shale. The concretions occur in localized deposits within the silty to sandy mudstones , in the lower four metres of

576-422: The sediment deposited in the deltaic system. Bacterial decomposition of the remains produced carbon dioxide that combined with dissolved iron from the groundwater . This process formed siderite in the sediments surrounding the remains, forming detailed casts of their structure. Lithification of the sediments formed protective nodules of ironstone around the now fossilized remains. This mode of preservation

612-560: The Braidwood fauna. 41°19′16″N 88°20′46″W  /  41.321°N 88.346°W  / 41.321; -88.346 Spoil tip The term "spoil" is also used to refer to material removed when digging a foundation, tunnel, or other large excavation. Such material may be ordinary soil and rocks (after separation of coal from waste ), or may be heavily contaminated with chemical waste, determining how it may be disposed of. Clean spoil may be used for land reclamation . Spoil

648-745: The Essex biota. The Essex area also includes the most famous faunal member of the Illinois state fossil Tullimonstrum , known popularly as the "Tully Monster". Other well-documented organisms include the crustacean Belotelson and the possible hemichordate Etacystis . The Braidwood fauna includes insects , millipedes , centipedes (three taxa, Latzelia , Mazoscolopendra , Palenarthrus ), scorpions , spiders , other arachnids , amphibians , freshwater fish ( Illiniichthys ), freshwater shrimps, freshwater horseshoe crabs and ostracods . The possible beetle Adiphlebia has been described from

684-521: The Petite Bacnure spoil tip in April 1999 closed off a street for many years. Several techniques of re-utilising the spoil tips exist, usually including either geotechnics or recycling . Most commonly, old spoil tips are partially revegetated to provide valuable green spaces since they are inappropriate for building purposes. At Nœux-les-Mines , an artificial ski slope has been constructed on

720-625: The area, known since the mid-nineteenth century, make the Mazon Creek lagerstätte important to paleontologists attempting to reconstruct the paleoecology of the sites. The locality was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1997. The Mazon Creek fossils are found in the Upper Carboniferous Francis Creek Shale . The type locality is the Mazon River (or Mazon Creek), a tributary of

756-431: The case of Spoil Tip No. 7 of the coal-mining region of Mariemont-Bascoup near Chapelle-lez-Herlaimont ( province of Hainaut ). It produces some 3,000 litres of wine each year from a vineyard on its slopes. Some spoil tips are used for various sporting activities. The slopes of the spoil tips of 11/19 at Loos-en-Gohelle , or again, at Nœux-les-Mines , are used for winter sports , for example ski and luge . A piste

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792-592: The city of Donetsk , which alone boasts about 130 of them. In Ukrainian , they are called terykony ( терикони ; singular терикон , terykon , 'soil cone') because of their shape. In Heringen , Hesse , Germany , is the popularly called " Monte Kali ", made of spoil from potash mining and rising some 200 meters above the surrounding terrain. "La Muntanya de Sal" (The Salt Mountain), another potash mine spoil heap, lies in Cardona , Catalonia , at about 120 meters in height. A larger and higher pile

828-420: The courage to withstand, that great mound has borne down upon these walls, this roof. And for those months the great bully has been beaten, for in my father’s day men built well for they were craftsmen. Stout beams, honest blocks, good work, and love for the job, all that is in this house. But the slag heap moves, pressing on, down and down, over and all round this house which was my father’s and my mother’s and now

864-413: The cracks in the pine timber used in the mines. Furthermore, on account of its dark colour, the south face of the spoil tip is significantly warmer than its surroundings, which contributes to the diverse ecology of the area. In this way, the spoil tip of Pinchonvalles, at Avion , hosts 522 different varieties of higher plants. Some sixty species of birds nest there. Some are used to cultivate vines, as in

900-523: The earth materials from excavations be removed in such a fashion that they can be replaced after the mining operations cease in a process called mine reclamation , with oversight of mining corporations. This requires adequate reserves of monetary bonds to guarantee a completion of the reclamation process when mining becomes unprofitable or stops. (See for example, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 .) In some spoil tips,

936-486: The formation. The paleoecosystem is believed to be a large river delta system, deposited by at least one major river system flowing from the northeast. The sediments are believed to derive from the Appalachian orogeny events. The delta had a tropical climate, a result of the area being within 10° north latitude of the equator during the Pennsylvanian . The remains of plants and animals were rapidly buried by

972-472: The former mining area of Pas-de-Calais , France , are a series of five very perfect cones, of which two rise 100 metres (330 ft) from the plain. Most commonly the term is used for the piles of waste earth materials removed during an excavation process. Spoil banks can also refer to refuse heaps formed from removal of excess surface materials. For example, alongside livestock lots, spoil banks are formed of manure and other slurry periodically removed from

1008-544: The shale and sandstone that was piled up in either a spoil tip of an older underground mine, or ridges of the later surface mining . The Peabody Energy company operated several large strip mines in Grundy County that are now abandoned. They were named Pit 1 through Pit 11. The northern pits 1-8 are known for the Braidwood Biota with mostly terrestrial fauna and flora. Pit 11, which was located southwest of

1044-536: The site is resoiled and simple vegetation such as grass is seeded on the slope. The piles also create acid rock drainage , which pollutes streams and rivers. Environmental problems have included surface runoff of silt , and leaching of noxious chemical compounds from spoil banks exposed to weathering . These cause contamination of ground water , and other problems. In the United States, current state and federal coal mining regulations require that

1080-413: The surface of the livestock lot areas. Spoil tips sometimes increased to millions of tons, and, having been abandoned, remain as huge piles today. They trap solar heat, making it difficult (although not impossible) for vegetation to take root; this encourages erosion and creates dangerous, unstable slopes. Existing techniques for regreening spoil tips include the use of geotextiles to control erosion as

1116-455: The tip. If spoil tips are considered to contain sufficient amounts of residual material, various methods are employed to remove the spoil from the site for subsequent processing. The oldest coal-based spoil tips may still contain enough coal to begin spontaneous slow combustion . This results in a form of vitrification of the shale, which then acquires sufficient mechanical strength to be of use in road construction. Some can therefore have

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1152-528: The town of Braidwood, Illinois, is known for its Essex Biota with a greater abundance of marine species. Pit 11 is now Braidwood State Fish and Wildlife Area , an Illinois state park . Fossil collecting is allowed at the park with a permit. The site's importance was realized in the mid-nineteenth century: "the nodules of Mazon Creek, where fragments of plants, even of the softest texture, have been preserved in their integrity". The Mazon Creek flora comprises over 400 species from at least 130 genera. However,

1188-497: The true number of species is difficult to determine. Paleobotanists name separate plant structures with different names by convention, inflating the number of fossil plant taxa. Paleobotanists are currently determining which taxa are valid. Mazon Creek flora includes: lycopsids , related to modern club moss, with arborescent forms named Lepidophloios , Sigillaria and Lepidodendron , and herbaceous forms called Lycopodites and Cormophyton ; sphenopsids like Calamites

1224-428: The turn of the 20th century. The local mine's spoil tip, which he calls a slag heap, is the central figure of devastation. Eventually the pile overtakes the entire valley and crushes Huw Morgan's house: The slagheap is moving again. I can hear it whispering to itself, and as it whispers, the walls of this brave little house are girding themselves to withstand the assault. For months, more than I ever thought it would have

1260-534: The waste resulting from industries such as coal or oil shale production can contain a relatively high proportion of hydrocarbons or coal dust. Spontaneous subterranean combustion may result, which can be followed by surface fires. In some coal mining districts, such fires were considered normal and no attempt was made to extinguish them. Such fires can follow slow combustion of residual hydrocarbons. Their extinction can require complete encasement, which can prove impossible for technical and financial reasons. Sprinkling

1296-534: Was built on the flank of the heap. In Belgium , a long distance footpath along the spoil tips (GR-412, Sentier des terrils ) was opened in 2005. It leads from Bernissart in western Hainaut to Blegny in the province of Liège . In the United States , coal mining companies have not been allowed to leave behind abandoned piles since the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act was passed in 1977. The Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center uses coal gob as

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