User:Elasticat/sandbox

= Vince's Sandbox = This is my sandbox. My sandbox began at the commencement of my semester in ERTH4303 at Carleton University. My student number is 100969321 and this will be where I submit most of my assignments for that course (I think).

= Practice Week 1 = The history of shoes is a website.

Shoes with rubber heels came into existence in 1899.

Article Evaluation
This is an article evaluation of Longwall mining, a mining practice discussed in lecture 3 of ERTH4303 at Carleton University. I will discuss relevant strengths and weaknesses of the article, as well as my suggestions to the improvement of the article's integrity. This article evaluation will hopefully help me and whoever reads this to understand more about the existing, accessible knowledge on longwall mining and what could be done to help the average reader learn about longwall mining in a neutral, informative way.

Article Class
This article is designated as a Start-Class and a High-importance mining article. It is clearly in need of improvement for the benefit of the mining and environmental communities.

Clarity
The article has only headings, and no sub headings. This did provide clarity, but perhaps the lack of subheadings is simply due to lack of contribution to the article. I believe that the Layout heading could have had the Ventilation and Equipment headings as subheadings, instead of three separate sections. This would make it easier for a reader to more easily find out about the entire make up of the Longwall mines.

The introductory sentence was clear and concise. However, in the history section, the first two paragraphs both ended without citations on particular information. However, it may simply be common knowledge as to how the physics of the longwall mine works.

The article was very on-topic of longwall mines. The only time it drifted was when the comparison to the Room and pillar method of mining. There were environmental impacts of longwall mining discussed, however the only mentioned cases were from 2009, nearly ten years ago. Perhaps the technology of longwall mining has improved in the last ten years, however there is no mention of that in the article.

Structure and Coverage
The descriptive phrase to start the article was very brief and explanatory and could give the average reader a very basic understanding of what Longwall mining really is.

While the article has many headings, it lacks any subheadings. I think the equipment section could use subheadings for readers that are familiar with mining practices. For example, they discuss the "armoured face conveyor" and "beam stage loader" and go into details regarding how fast these components move, how much weight they can bear, and more. I think details such as this could be more beneficial to the average reader if they were put into subheadings.

While some concepts were quite complicated, it was nice to have images such as the diagram, which helped to conceptualize how the mechanisms all work together in the longwall mining process.

The chronology of the article was quite good. It began with the history of longwall mining and its importance in harvesting coal, moving into the mechanisms driving longwall mining in comparison to other techniques, and lastly closing out with environmental impacts of the process. As I mentioned below in the talk page discussion, one user had an issue with the tone of the article, but that must have been very early in the article's existence, as subsequent users did not see an issue with bias in regards to the article.

Neutrality
In terms of bias, I initially believed that since this article outlines mostly a mining practice that there was really not much space for a bias to exist. If any bias, it might simply have been written by people with more mining experience so they used more complicated mining language, such as "undercut" and the mention of a "coal face". These are terms that, to people with little to no background in geology or mining, might be confusing. However, they still did a good job explaining the mechanisms of the longwall mine.

It would help level out the neutrality of the subject to have more of an economic and environmental lens in regards to longwall mining. Since the article is only part of WikiProject Mining, and no WikiProjects involving the environment or social/economic groups could lead to a skewed description of what comprises a longwall mine and what the negative side effects could be. There is a brief comment in the Equipment section ( I don't believe that environmental impacts should be stuck into the bottom of other sections, rather they should have their entire own section - this again has to due with the structure of the article) about how longwall mining can cause surface damage and ultimately have effects on rivers and building foundations, however there is little elaboration in this matter whereas there is great elaboration in the tiny details of how the equipment works, for example how they mention the speed at which the coal shearer rotates as it automatically mines coal.

I discuss another bias perceived by a user, SADouglas, below in the Talk Page section.

Talk Page
This article is part of WikiProject Mining. I thought I might end up working on this page for my assignment, so I added myself to the WikiProject mining members list.

One user on the talk page, SADouglas criticizes the article, calling it biases and low quality. This must have been in the early stages of the article, as they reference that there was only 3 footnotes at the time. At the time of this writing, there are twelve footnotes. Other users commented on SADouglas' comment, saying that they did not find it to be a biased article, but perhaps the article had been changed since SADouglas had read it. SADouglas' main concern was that the article had mentioned that immediate subsidence was a benefit. Other users mention that subsidence is a minor negative side effect compared to the benefits of longwall mining. These users also urge SADouglas to add sources and information to the article that pertain to how the subsidence from longwall mining is so terrible.

One user on the talk page mentions that they had difficult understanding the Layout section of the article, particularly the part about Gate roads. I had some trouble conceptualizing this myself, and as I mentioned above, it would be difficult for people without an extensive mining background to understand some of the terms used in this article.

Something that should be brought up on the talk page is that there should be more recent information on subsidence due to longwall mining, as the environmental impacts discussed in the article were, firstly, outdated (by about ten years), and also only from cases in Oceania. It would be interesting and important to have more instances around the world of how longwall mining impacts the environment. Another thing that could be brought up would be the historical use of horses in the longwall mines. In the source that I discuss below in regards to the photo album kept by a miner in 1940, he mentions how horses were not allowed in the mines until the age of three, and there were in fact stables inside the mines to help cart coal to the surface. More research on this topic would be interesting to understand the development of longwall mining over time.

Mountaintop Mining
Mountaintop mining is one of the types of articles I have an interest in working on. It is part of WikiProject Environment.

Environmental Impacts
As with many mining techniques, it is important to consider the local and regional environmental impacts from longwall mining.

Subsidence (copied from longwall mining)
Longwall Mine Subsidence (LWMS) is an anthropogenic process that has many ecological and environmental impacts, particularly on soil health and water movement in a region where LWMS is heavily done. This is important to consider as some longwall mine sites can span lengths of several kilometers. That being said, hydrological flow systems, root systems from trees, and vegetative species can suffer from the amounts of soil being removed beneath them, and these stresses lead to surface erosion.

Abandoned mines are also an issue with regards to areas where residential development has moved in. Houses erected near to abandoned longwall mines face the threat of future damage from sinkholes and poor soil quality, even up to thirty years after mine abandonment.

Since longwall mining is namely, very long, it can effect areas of over 200 acres. Over these larges spans, it has been observed that longwall mines underlying mountain sides demonstrate more visible subsidence in mountain landscapes than it does for valley landscapes.

There have been cases of surface subsidence altering the landscape above the mines. At Newstan Colliery in New South Wales, Australia "the surface has dropped by as much as five metres in places" above a multi level mine. In some cases the subsidence causes damage to natural features such as drainage to water courses or man-made structures such as roads and buildings. "Douglas Park Drive was closed for four weeks because longwall panels ... destabilised the road. In 2000, the State Government stopped mining when it came within 600 metres from the twin bridges. A year later there were reports of 40-centimetre gaps appearing in the road, and the bridge had to be jacked sideways to realign it." p. 2

A 2005 geotechnical report commissioned by the NSW RTA warns that "subsidence could happen suddenly and occur over many years".

However, there are several mines, which were successfully mined with little to no measurable surface subsidence including mines under lakes, oceans, important water catchments and environmentally sensitive areas. Subsidence is minimised by increasing the block's adjacent chain pillar widths, decreasing extracted block widths and heights, and by giving consideration to the depth of cover as well as competency and thickness of overlying strata.

My contributions to the page (Draft)
The above material was copied from the Longwall mining article. Areas that I am looking to improve on the article are the environmental impacts, such as rock fracturing, water quality, and the waste outputs of longwall mines. The below material is what I intend on adding to the Wikipedia page.

I added a few comments in last week's assignment "add to an article" however I believe that this section still needs improvement. The section was initially titled "Subsidence" but I changed that title to Environmental Impacts and I included Subsidence as a sub-heading, as I intend to find more environmental impacts from longwall mining other than subsidence. Namely, the impacts that longwall mining has on aquifers and water systems, as well as its ecological impacts. This is important because as an environmental science student, I believe that the environmental impacts of mining practices should be understood by society, capital investors, and policy makers alike.

I found a source that indicates mathematical prevention measures that longwall miners most consider when undergoing longwall mining projects. This article also outlines that not following these measures could result in the dangers of floor water rushing into the mine and neighbouring regions. An important conclusion they draw in their research is that if a mine is above an aquiclude, it has an increased chance of breakage when above thicker aquicludes. This information is in section 3, so I will mention that in the talk page.

The article also mentions an equation:

$$\sigma _m \geq \sigma_t$$

Where m indicates "maximum" stress tolerated by the underlying aquiclude, and t indicates tensile stress on the beams used in longwall mining setup operations. Perhaps this would be interesting to include in the Equipment section. It would go nicely along with explaining the physics behind the acquiclude positioning near the mine. This is an accessible, peer-reviewed journal article, so the math is verifiable and accurate. The Total Environment Centre is an environmentally-based research group, and they have an organized board of directors and seem to be reputable in Australia.

Beyond the mathematical, there was another article that discussed how events other than subsidence can occur, such as rock fracturing, water quality, and gas emissions. This source references a few case studies, and I believe it is important to use relevant, real-world examples.

This article indicates that longwall mining can impact the environment in the way of accelerating natural geological processes. This is described in section 3.1.1, and will be appropriate to go into the Subsidence subheading, as this could be a good introductory sentence for readers that do not have much of a geological background or understanding of what subsidence is. I will mention on the talk page that most of the information from this resource comes from section 3.

Building on the environmental impacts section of the copied article above, I will add the following subheading and information.

Fracturing and Water Quality
Longwall mining can result in geological disruptions in the rockbed, and can in turn effect water movement and result in water moving away from the surface, through the mined area, and into the aquifer. A resulting loss in surface water can negatively impact riparian ecosystems.

On top of this, if there are present dams near to the longwall mining site, this could doubly impact the riparian ecosystems as it would have a reduced inflow rate as well as the loss to the underlying rock fracturing.

Another article I found is from the Australian government. It indicates that as of 2014, measures are to be taken in dealing with the environmental impacts of longwall mining. What is interesting is that a lot of the research already present in this article comes from Australian sources. This should be mentioned in the Talk page. I had a goal in broadening the scope of the page to encompass more of a global perspective on longwall mining, at least from Canada, but the majority of my findings that seem credible are from Australian sources.

As a result of bedrock cracking from mining beneath waters such as lakes or rivers, there have been groundwater losses of varying extents. Mines within a few hundred meters of the surface are susceptible to receiving great inputs of water from these bodies. Moreover, after mining interference disturbing the natural landscape near the mines, the natural water flow paths can be redirected which results in additional erosion across a stream or river bank. Additional mining in concentrated areas continuously move these water flow paths, which take years to return to their original states.

Ecosystem Impacts
Many ecosystems rely on the annual consistency of water inputs and outputs, and disturbing these patterns can result in unsustainable conditions for species reliant on water for species reproduction. Longwall mining can also result in localized water temperature change, stimulating algal bloom which can use up available oxygen required for other species health.

Longwall mining has limited available research on the impacts of nearby forests, however emerging satellite imagery studies have shown possible relations to drier surface soil near regions where longwall mining has recently occurred. In addition to drier soils, forest canopy moisture has been observed to be reduced.

Gas Emissions
Longwall mines have been observed to release methane gas, a common greenhouse gas into the environment, however the increase of a typical longwall mine face from 200 meters to 300 meters was not found to release significantly more methane. Methane emissions from closed longwall mines can continue for up to fifteen years, however it is possible to measure the volume of potential methane emissions based on water flow in the closed mines.

Longwall Mining in Canada
There is not yet a longwall mining in Canada section, and I have found three articles that outline longwall mining disputes in British Columbia. I think a Canadian perspective is important to consider since Canada as a country has among the top 10 coal reserves in the world. As of 2013, no longwall mines existed in Canada. These articles come from Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, and "resourceclips," which is a mining-focused news column. It is backed by several energy corporations, so their views regarding the environment seem to be honest and clear, and it is always good to include both the news-eye as well as the point of view from the mining industry.

In 2015, the first longwall mine opened in Canada at the hands of HD mining, a Chinese corporation, and expects to operate until 2040. The mine opened by hiring foreign workers, but had the long term goal of training Canadian workers as the project went on. This article also refers to a research paper that indicates that the annual burning of coal from this mine would account for nearly half (17 megatons) of British Columbia's of carbon dioxide emissions cap set for 2020 in that 5 year span. In 2017, the government instilled a carbon cap that would keep the emissions of the mine to be at 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide.

In response to First Nations concerns regarding caribou in the region, HD mining is responsible for working to manage these populations as well.

I have been careful in selecting my sources for the expansion of the Wikipedia page, leaning towards government-backed pages and data sheets, as well as relevant news articles (such as the Vancouver sun and CBC news). As I read through each source I have chosen, they have been clear in presenting a transparent, research backed point of view on their respective topics.

Reflective Essay
Throughout the semester I had the chance to work on the Longwall Mining Wikipedia article. I still have some additions to make before the final project is submitted, however at this point, I feel like the reflections I make are true to what will be seen in the final rendition of the article.

Evaluating an article was a very helpful way to begin the development of my article. The guiding questions outlined on the Wikipedia models helped understand what is important to include in writing my own article. For example, we were encouraged to comment on the structure, neutrality, and validity of the article. These questions helped me learn how to use Wikipedia efficiently, that is, refer to the sources listed at the bottom of each Wikipedia article to fact-check anything in question.

My approach to critiquing Longwall Mining was from an environmental perspective, especially for people outside of the realm of science. I found the article focused mainly on the processes, mechanisms, and profits made from longwall mining, however there was little information on environmental impacts. Also, I found a lot of the language used was complex and probably difficult for someone without much of a science background to understand.

I always find it important to include environmental perspectives, and mining is an environmentally intensive process. Mining is an extensive industry in Canada, so I also found importance in adding the Canadian relevance of longwall mining. I discussed the impacts of longwall mining on local ecosystems as well as human health and safety, as I find this is information that people living near to longwall mines, as well as those learning about the process itself, would find informative. Additionally, I moved the already existing heading “Subsidence” as a subheading under a new heading I created titled “Environmental Impacts.”  The reason for this being that I believe there are multiple environmental impacts, including GHG emissions as well as ecological disturbances. Writing on those three types of environmental impacts, I was able to develop a section of the article that was only briefly touched on in earlier versions.

Throughout the course, I have attempted to contribute to a few other articles, and I have had some of my stuff removed due to contradictory claims or whatnot, however none of my additions to the Longwall Mining page have been removed by anyone. I take this as a good sign that my contributions are benefiting the page in a positive manner.

During the course, we each peer-reviewed two articles. I reviewed my friend Hena’s article on the Permian Basin, and Matthew’s article on Biofuels in Canada. I followed the Wikipedia guidelines, giving each of them thorough reviews of their proposed additions, as well as changes that could be made to the already existing article. The Wikipedia course module gave really informative things to consider when looking at someone else’s article. Additionally, I found that some of the topics I had discussed seemed clear to me, however after the peer review, those that reviewed my article mentioned a few things that could be reiterated to be more understandable from a readers’ perspective. For example Ethan suggested that I add a subsection on the remediation measures taken from the Australian case studies I included. This was helpful in drafting my final paper, and his examples of subheadings helped me think about how I could organize my article in a logical manner.

I suggested for Hena to reorganize the flow of her article, as the article that she chose had a few history sections that could be bundled into one section. Additionally, I mentioned the social context of Sylvite extraction, as it mentions in the article that it has been ongoing since 1931 so it would have been interesting to see how the nearby populations have adapted or reacted to mining in the Permian basin.

The feedback I received from the peer review was moderately helpful. What came up the most was the organization of my content, as well as the social relevance to Canada. This was something I was striving to act on from the get go, so it was good to know that this was the concerns of my peer-reviewers as well. This would help the overall knowledge of the public (people reading Wikipedia) as reorganizing the page would ensure clear and effective sharing of knowledge on the topic of Longwall mining. It is also important to know, as Ethan mentioned, a relevance to Canada as well. Since Canada is an important mining exporter in the international trade, the general public would be enlightened to know the role Canada plays in the mining industry, within Longwall mining as well as other types of mining industry. This could be achieved by redirecting links to mining in Canada and the environmental and economic impacts of mining in Canada.

Overall, I was very happy to work on a Wikipedia assignment throughout the ERTH4303 course. I have always been an avid reader of Wikipedia, and I understand that fact checking is of utmost importance. Besides that, I think that we truly are in an era where knowledge can be shared better than at any other time in history. In the developed world, this is definitely partly thanks to Wikipedia. Working on an article that can be seen by potentially thousands of people makes me feel like the work I have done in this course is beneficial to the public knowledge. Wikipedia allows professionals, as well as non-professionals, to contribute knowledge from a wide array of resources, compiling information on potentially anything that anyone would want to learn about. I especially think that the concept of WikiProjects, such as WikiProject:Environment, allow contributors with niche backgrounds to come together and decide on important topics that need to have better coverage on Wikipedia. Working in these communities is an excellent way of working on improving Wikipedia on a day to day basis, and I look forward to remaining a member of WikiProject:Environment even after this course is finished.