THE ISSUE

    A major challenge in the reclamation of the Victor Mine and other mine sites in the Hudson Bay Lowland (HBL) is the selection of suitable plant species for the reclamation of these new uplands. How do we choose the best candidate species for the rehabilitation of mine sites, given the condition that they must be native and local?

    THE SOLUTION

    A functional assessment of upland native plants in the Hudson Bay Lowland was conducted to determine their potential to disperse, establish, grow, allocate resources and contribute to the ecosystem development. Sixteen simple traits (plant height, leaf thickness, stem density, ability to fix nitrogen, etc) were measured on three populations of 67 species near the Victor Mine. This produced a very large data base which was simplified using multivariate analysis.

    THE RESULTS

    First Phase work on the S-GMAT tool is now complete. For more information, contact the IMS at www.imseismology.org. The next phase of this project will be to validate and then integrate the S-GMAT with BurstSupport, a tool developed by MIRARCO to help deal with dynamic rock support element selection in burst prone mines.

    Here is a shot of early successional plants along the river. Note the rocks, the lack of soil but the high diversity of plants.

    Here is a multivariate diagram to show how we separate the different species (data points) into different groups, in terms of dispersal ability.

    Contact

    • Daniel Campbell, MIRARCO
    • 1-705-675-1151 x 2385
    • dcampbell@mirarco.org
    • www.mirarco.org

    Solution team

    • Cory Laurin (MSc), Laurentian University
    • Brian Steinback, Debeers Canada
    • Terry Ternes, Debeers Canada
    • Douglas Morrison, CEMI