Post-mining: Opportunities and challenges

After the closure of mines in Germany, former districts are nowadays subject to changes, which may require geomonitoring. This concerns the mine water management in particular as pumping of mine water in the abandoned mines is technically not necessary anymore. As a result of the controlled mine water rebound, fluid pore pressures in subsurface rocks increase and may alter the stress state of the subsurface rocks. The increased pore pressures may result in geomechanical changes in the deeper subsurface around the mine. This may result in ground movements and micro-seismic events, which may be measured on the surface. Post-mining also provides an opportunity for post-usage, such as new natural (geo)heritage sites or geothermal energy. Thus, centuries-long active mining produced a wealth of geological, geodetic, geophysical, and geomechanical data. Based on such multidisciplinary data, interdisciplinary geological models and technical solutions can be developed and applied to different mining areas worldwide where active mining has been closed. This session invites contributions from different scientific disciplines that study the processes that undergo in post-mining areas in Germany and globally. Among others, this may include geology investigating sediment or rock properties and structures on different scales, geophysics detecting fluid-induced micro-seismic events and studying stress fields, and geomonitoring of ground movements or gas emissions. It may address strategies to improve land rehabilitation above and below ground.