The environmental impacts of a major mine tailings spill on coastal and marine environments
2022
Sánchez, Luis Enrique |
Barbosa, Francisco |
Brito, Maria Cecília |
May, Peter |
Maroun, Christianne |
Renshaw, Jonathan |
Kakabadse, Yolanda |
Based on the volume of tailings releases and the distance they travelled, the Fundão Dam failure in southeast Brazil (Mariana, Minas Gerais state) was the largest ever environmental disaster in Brazil’s mining industry, and one of the world’s most serious. As they dispersed downriver, the tailings accumulated along the riverbanks and reached the Rio Doce estuary in the Eastern Brazilian Marine Ecoregion.