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Mining: A glossary of terms

Strip mining:

The process of digging long, wide, deep pits in the ground to clear out the overburden to get to seams of coal.

Overburden:

The ground above coal seams or the ground that separates the surface from the ceiling of an underground mine.

Undermining:

An underground mine that extends under a building, town or roadway.

Chat, sometimes called tailings:

Fine-grained mine wastes, similar to gravel, often deposited in piles that look like hills or small mountains. Chat can carry toxic metals such as lead, and dust blown from the chat piles also can get into lungs, soil and water.

Superfund:

A federal funding program administered by the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate and clean up uncontrolled and abandoned toxic waste sites.

Subsidence:

A depression on in the ground.

Sinkhole:

A surface hole or cave-in.