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Visualizing the Size of Mine Tailings

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VCE Mine Tailings V2

Visualizing the Size of Mine Tailings

On January 25th, 2019, a 10-meter tall wave traveling 120 km/h, washed 10 million m3 of mining waste from the Brumadinho tailings dam over the Brazilian countryside killing somewhere between 270 and 320 people.

This was a manmade disaster, made from mining the materials we use daily. Every copper wire in your house, steel frame in an EV, or any modern appliance comes from mining.

Mining leaves behind waste in the form of tailings stored in dams or ponds around the world. This infographic takes a look at the estimated size of one part of this waste, tailings, visualized next to the skyline of New York City as a benchmark.

Quantifying Mining’s Material Impact

In the wake of the Brumadinho tailings failure, the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) began a review with institutional investors and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), to survey tailings facilities around the world.

The Global Tailings Review tracked a total of 1,743 unique facilities containing 44,540,000,000 m3 of tailings. This dataset represents only 30.2% of global commodity production.

However, the review estimated the total number of active, inactive, and closed facilities is around 8,500. If we use the assumptions for the 1,743 estimate to calculate for the 8,500 facilities, a total of 217,330,652,000 m3 of tailings are in storage globally.

What are Tailings?

Not all rock that comes out of the ground is metal. Miners find, remove, and refine rocks that carry a small amount of metal we need.

According to the USGS, 72 billion tonnes of material produced just over 10 billion tonnes of ore. Only 14% mined material makes it to processing for metals.

Waste rock (tonnes)Material Sent to Mill (tonnes)Ore Produced (tonnes)Tailings (tonnes)
72,000,000,00018,800,000,00010,180,000,0008,850,000,000

Tailings are what is left over after mills separate the metal from the mined rock. The processed material “tailings” comes from the “tail” end of a mining mill and comprise fine particles mixed with water forming a slurry. Mining companies will store this waste in dams or ponds.

Not All Minerals Are Equal: Tailings Contribution by Commodity

Not all minerals are equal in their contribution to tailings. The grade, quantity, and the process to extract the valuable metals affect each metal’s material impact.

Mineral% Contribution to Global Tailings
Copper46%
Gold21%
Iron9%
Coal8%
Phosphate4%
Lead and Zinc3%
Nickel2%
Platinum Group Elements1%
Bauxite1%
Uranium<1%
Chromium<1%
Molybdenum<1%
Tin<1%
Vanadium<1%
Manganese<1%
Niobium<1%
Rare Earths<1%
Lithium<1%
Other minerals1%
Total100%

A renewable future will be mineral intensive and will inevitably produce more mining waste, but growing awareness around mining’s true cost will force companies to minimize and make the most of their waste.

Turning a Liability into an Asset

While tailings are waste, they are not useless. Researchers know there remains economic value in tailings. Natural Resources Canada estimated that there is $10B in total metal value in Canadian gold mining waste.

Rio Tinto has produced borates from a mine in the Mojave Desert which has left behind more than 90 years’ worth of tailings. The company was probing the tailings for gold and discovered lithium at a concentration higher than other U.S. projects under development.

According to UBC’s Bradshaw Initiative for Minerals and Mining professor Greg Dipple, the mining industry could help society store carbon. For over a decade, he has researched a process in which tailings naturally draws CO₂ from the air and traps it in tailings.

A Material World

While the majority of mining companies manage tailing dams safely, the issue of the material impacts of mining on Earth remains.

Mining of metal has grown on average by 2.7% a year since the 1970s, and will continue to grow. The importance of the size of tailings is critical to address proactively, before it comes rushing through the front door, as it did in Brazil.

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Charted: If Gold Was Shared Equally, How Much Would You Get?

There are 244,000 metric tons of known gold reserves. And 8 billion people. Here’s the answer to: what if gold was shared equally?

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This chart examines a hypothetical question of how much gold there is in the entire world for every person by dividing all known reserves by current global population.

Charted: If Gold Was Shared Equally, How Much Would You Get?

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Desired for millennia because of its shine and rarity, gold is still the safe haven asset (with fairly decent returns) in times of uncertainty.

This chart examines a hypothetical question of how much gold every person in the world would get if all discovered gold was shared equally.

Data for this graphic is sourced from the U.S. Geological Survey and from the UN’s World Population Prospects 2024.

There’s Not a Lot of Gold for 8 Billion People

Turns out, there really isn’t a lot of gold in the world.

To date, only 244,000 metric tons of gold have ever been discovered. This includes historical production and current known discoveries.

That works out to about 30 grams (about one troy ounce), or six gold rings, for every single human being on the planet.

CategoriesFigures
Gold Discovered
(Metric Tons)
244,000
World Population8,161,972,572
Gold per Person
(Metric Tons)
0.00002989
Gold per
Person (Grams)
29.89 (or one ounce)

Of course, jewelry isn’t the only use of gold (though it does account for the largest share of above-ground use).

Central banks have quite a bit in their reserves, with the U.S. holding the most at roughly 8,000 tonnes.

At sixth place China (2,200 tonnes) has been steadily increasing its reserves in the past year, in a bid to diversify foreign exchange reserves away from the U.S. Treasury bonds.

Largest Gold Producers

And then there’s all the gold beneath the ground, spread out in massive mines across the world. Of them, Australia is home to two in the top 10, and is also the second-largest producer.

Who’s the largest producer? That’s China—even though it doesn’t have any large mines on the same scale as those found in the U.S. and Australia. Instead it has numerous smaller ones, and coupled with efficient smelting infrastructure, ends up producing more volume.

Finally, South Africa held the top supplier spot between 1900–1970. Its production peaked at about 1,000 tonnes annually, the most by any country in a single year.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

Need even more gold graphics? Good thing we have a few. Check out: Visualizing Gold Consumption vs. Domestic Supply to see which countries use the most gold.

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Charted: The Global Mining Industry, by Market Cap

Australia tops the list, with its major mining companies totaling $353 billion in market cap.

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This graphic breaks down the market value of the entire global mining industry.

Charted: The Global Mining Industry, by Market Cap

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

This graphic breaks down the market value of the entire global mining industry, as of Jan. 16, 2025, using data from Companiesmarketcap.com.

Note that this data only covers publicly-traded companies.

Australia and Canada Lead

Australia tops the list, with its major mining companies totaling $353 billion in market capitalization. The country is home to two of the biggest miners in the world, BHP and Rio Tinto.

CountryCompanyMarket Cap (USD)
🇦🇺 AustraliaBHP Group125B
🇨🇳 China China Shenhua Energy103B
🇦🇺 AustraliaRio Tinto97B
🇺🇸 U.S.Southern Copper77B
🇺🇸 U.S.Freeport-McMoRan58B
🇨🇭 SwitzerlandGlencore55B
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia Maaden49B
🇺🇸 U.S.Newmont48B
🇨🇦 CanadaAgnico Eagle Mines43B
🇮🇩 Indonesia Bayan Resources42B
🇲🇽 MexicoGrupo México39B
🇦🇺 AustraliaFortescue36B
🇬🇧 UKAnglo American37B
🇧🇷 BrazilVale37B
🇨🇳 ChinaZijin Mining57B
🇮🇳 India Coal India27B
🇨🇦 CanadaBarrick Gold28B
🇨🇦 CanadaWheaton Precious Metals27B
🇨🇦 CanadaNutrien26B
🇨🇦 CanadaFranco-Nevada24B
🇨🇦 CanadaTeck Resources22B
🇨🇦 CanadaCameco22B
🇬🇧 UKAntofagasta21B
🇮🇳 IndiaVedanta20B
🇷🇺 RussiaNornickel18B
🇨🇦 CanadaIvanhoe Mines15B
🇨🇳 ChinaYanzhou Coal Mining15B
🇨🇦 CanadaKinross Gold13B
🇦🇺 AustraliaNorthern Star12B
🇷🇺 RussiaSeverstal11B
🇨🇦 CanadaFirst Quantum Minerals11B
🇰🇿 KazakhstanKazatomprom10B
🇦🇺 AustraliaSouth3210B
🇺🇸 U.S.Royal Gold9B
🇨🇳 ChinaGanfeng Lithium9B
🇸🇪 Sweden Boliden8B
🇨🇦 CanadaAlamos Gold8B
🇨🇦 CanadaPan American Silver8B
🇨🇳 ChinaTianqi Lithium7B
🇦🇺 AustraliaEvolution Mining7B
🇨🇦 CanadaLundin Mining7B
🇮🇳 IndonesiaNMDC7B
🇨🇦 CanadaLundin Gold6B
🇮🇩 India United Tractors6B
🇯🇵 JapanSumitomo Metal Mining6B
🇲🇽 Mexico Fresnillo6B
🇵🇱 PolandKGHM6B
🇿🇦 South AfricaHarmony Gold6B
🇬🇧 UKEndeavour Mining5B
🇿🇦 South AfricaImpala Platinum5B
🌍 Global TotalAll Companies Combined1.4T

Rich in minerals, Australia is the world’s largest producer of iron ore, essential for steel production, and lithium, a key component in batteries.

While Canada’s economy has struggled to keep pace with its southern neighbor, its mining industry remains formidable.

The country’s mining sector has a combined market capitalization of $344 billion, making it the second-largest globally.

Canada, the world’s second-largest country by area after Russia, has vast natural resource wealth. It is particularly rich in gold, copper, nickel, and potash.

United States with miners totaling $228 billion and China with companies totaling $206 billion come in third and forth, respectively.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed this topic, check out this graphic showing the number of mines that must be developed to meet the expected demand for energy transition raw materials and chemicals by 2030.

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