Mining Terminology T - Z

• Tailings: Material discarded from a mill after most of the valuable minerals have been extracted.

• Tailings pond: A low depression used to incarcerate tailings, the main function of which is to give sufficient time for heavy the metals to settle out or for cyanide to be destroyed before water is discharged into the local watershed.

• Uraninite: Consists of uranium mineral that has a high content of uranium and that can often times be found in pegmatite dykes.

• Volcanogenic: A term that is utilized explain the volcanic origin of mineralization.

• Vug: Consists of a little hole in a rock and which are often times lined with well formed crystals. Amethyst frequently forms in these cavities.

• Wall rocks: The rocks that are on both sides of an ore body.

• Waste: Un-mineralized, or from time to time mineralized, rock that cannot be mined for return.

• Wedge: Consists of a procedure of guiding a diamond drill hole in a required direction away from its present direction.

• Zone: Consists of an area of mineralization.

• Zone of oxidation: The upper part of an ore body that has become oxidized.