Mine wastes and tailings derived from historical processing may contain significant contents of valuable metals due to processing being less efficient in the past. The Plombières tailings pond in eastern Belgium was selected as a case study to determine mineralogical and geochemical characteristics of the different mine waste materials found at the site. Four types of material were classified: soil, metallurgical waste, brown tailings and yellow tailings. The distribution of the mine wastes was investigated with drill holes, pit-holes and geophysical methods. Samples of the materials were assessed with grain size analysis, and mineralogical and geochemical techniques. The mine wastes dominantly consist of SiO₂, Al₂O₃ and Fe₂O₃. The cover material, comprising soil and metallurgical waste is highly heterogeneous in terms of mineralogy, geochemistry and grain size. The metallurgical waste has a high concentration of metals (Zn: 0.1 to 24 wt.% and Pb: 0.1 to 10.1 wt.%). In the tailings materials, Pb and Zn vary from 10 ppm to 8.5 wt.% and from 51 ppm to 4 wt.%, respectively. The mining wastes comprises mainly quartz, amorphous phases and phyllosilicates, with minor contents of Fe-oxide and Pb- and Zn-bearing minerals. Based on the mineralogical and geochemical properties, the different potential applications of the four waste material types were determined. Additionally, the theoretical economic potential of Pb and Zn in the mine wastes was estimated.

The increasing need to find alternative stocks of critical raw materials drives to revisit the residues generated during the former production of mineral and metallic raw materials. Geophysical methods contribute to the sustainable characterization of metallurgical residues inferring on their composition, zonation and volume(s) estimation. Nevertheless, more quantitative approaches are needed to link geochemical or mineralogical analyses with the geophysical data. In this contribution, we describe a methodology that integrates geochemical and geophysical laboratory measurements to interpret geophysical field data solving a classification problem. The final aim is to estimate volume(s) of different types of materials to assess the potential resource recovery. We illustrate this methodology with a slag heap composed of residues from a former iron and steel factory. First, we carried out a 3D field acquisition using electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) and induced polarization (IP), based on which, a sampling survey was designed. We conducted laboratory measurements of ERT, IP, spectral induced polarization (SIP), and X-ray fluorescence analysis, based on which, 4 groups of different chemical composition were identified. Then we carried out a 3D probabilistic classification of the field data, based on 2D kernel density estimators (for each group) fitted to the inverted data collocated with the samples. The estimated volumes based on the classification model were: 4.17 × 10 ³ m³ ± 12 %, 1.888 × 10⁵ m³ ± 12 %, 59.4 × 10³ m³ ± 19 %, and 2.30 × 10⁴ m³ ± 21% for the groups ordered with an increasing metallic content. The uncertainty ranges were derived from comparing the volumes with and without considering the probabilities associated to the classification. We found that a representative sampling and the definition of the KDE bandwidths are defining elements in the classification and ultimately the estimation of volumes. This methodology is suitable to quantitatively interpret geophysical data in terms of the geochemical composition of the materials, integrating uncertainties both in the classification and the estimation of volumes. Furthermore, several crucial elements in the investigation of metallurgical residues could be applied in a real case study, e.g., geophysical field acquisition, sampling and lab measurements.

Magnetic resonance imaging is a valuable tool for three-dimensional mapping of soil water processes due to its sensitivity to the substance of interest: water. Since conventional gradient- or spin-echo based pulse sequences do not detect rapidly relaxing fractions of water in natural porous media with transverse relaxation times in the millisecond range, pulse sequences with ultrafast detection open a way out. In this work, we compare a spin-echo multislice pulse sequence with ultrashort (UTE) and zero-TE (ZTE) sequences for their suitability to map water content and its changes in 3D in natural soil materials. Longitudinal and transverse relaxation times were found in the ranges around 80 ms and 1 to 50 ms, respectively, so that the spin echo sequence misses larger fractions of water. In contrast, ZTE and UTE could detect all water, if the excitation and detection bandwidths were set sufficiently broad. More precisely, with ZTE we could map water contents down to 0.1 cm³/cm³. Finally, we employed ZTE to monitor the development of film flow in a natural soil core with high temporal resolution. This opens the route for further quantitative imaging of soil water processes.

Polders are coastal low-lying areas reclaimed on the sea mainly for agriculture. They are constantly drained by pumps, ditches and subsurface drains. In West-Flanders, Belgium they are composed of a shallow freshwater lens on top of denser saline groundwater. This freshwater lens is essential for crop growth but during dry periods, it can disappear and the saline groundwater can enter the root zone by capillary rise and endanger yield. To prevent this, farmers can use controlled drainage to raise the water table in their field during winter months to increase the freshwater lens thickness. To study the effectiveness of the technique, we monitored three fields with piezometers, resistivity sticks alongside field mapping using electromagnetic induction for three years. The resistivity sticks highlighted lithological differences, but also enabled us to monitor the fresh–saline water interface and the water table accurately. Controlled drainage retained additional rainfall during intense summer precipitation but little effect was observed on the fresh–saline water interface. Soil heterogeneity and past land use of the field seem to have a larger effect on the fresh–saline water interface. Despite the limited effect on the freshwater lens, the value of geophysical methods for monitoring its thickness for field-scale study was demonstrated.

Whether environmental or economic interests are at stake, characterization of landfills is becoming a key operation. Characterization not only concerns old landfills, but also modern engineered landfills where the assessment and monitoring of internal processes such as leachate and biogas generation is of a primary importance. Nowadays, characterization is mostly carried out by conventional invasive methods based on drilling/trenching, sampling and laboratory analyses. Although they provide direct and analytical information, their spatial coverage, or representability, remains a major drawback. In addition, they can be expensive and increase the risk of damaging contamination barriers. Therefore, non- to minimally- invasive characterization geophysical techniques emerge as a complementary option. They allow to better capture the spatial heterogeneity across a site and are more cost-effective than punctual measurements alone. Furthermore, when compared with limited ground truth data, they may provide insights into waste composition, water content or temperature. The present study highlights the added value of a multiple geophysical approach to characterize a landfill located in Engelskirchen in Germany. Leppe landfill was used as a municipal solid waste (MSW) deposit site from 1982 until the end of 2004. Since then, only ash coming from the MSW incineration is discarded, mostly on top of the previous MSW deposit. The combination of geophysical methods used in this study included electrical resistivity tomography (ERT),  induced polarization (IP), multichannel analysis of surface waves (MASW) and horizontal to vertical noise spectral ratio (HVSNR). The 3D ERT and IP model allowed to identify dry zones within the waste (which may have a direct impact on biogas production) and to roughly discriminate the layer of ash from the MSW layer. Seismic velocity model provided by MASW permitted to significantly improve the delineation between the two layers. HVNSR results combined with the information provided by MASW were used to estimate the thickness of the top layer on a larger area using a bilayer hypothesis. These geophysical characterization results were validated with available ground truth data. Overall, in the present case seismic methods showed to be more suited than geoelectrical techniques for the distinction between the ash and MSW layers.