Abstract

Most of the coal production in India comes from open cast mines contributing over 81% of the total production. A large number of open cast mines of over 10 million tons per annum capacity are in operation. Mining activities particularly opencast mining in huge forest areas results into loss of biodiversity, loss of nutrient qualities and microbial activities of the soil system. Opencast mining releases huge amount of mining wastes to the upper part of the land surface as overburden dump materials. In this study, the site selected for the experiment was overburden dump at different mining areas under Raniganj coalfields (RCF). The overburden (OB) samples were collected during the months of February and May 2010. Physico chemical characteristics such as Bulk density, Grain size distribution, pH, Electrical conductivity, Organic carbon, Organic matter, Nitrogen and Available phosphorus were determined in the Geoenvironment Division Lab, CIMFR Dhanbad.