Spoil bank

A spoil tip (also called a spoil bank, boney pile, gob pile, bing, batch, boney dump or pit heap) is a pile built of accumulated spoil – the overburden or other waste rock removed during coal and ore mining. These waste materials are typically composed of shale, as well as smaller quantities of carboniferous sandstone and various other residues. Spoil tips are not formed of slag, but in some areas they are referred to as slag heaps.

The term "spoil" is also used to refer to material removed when digging a foundation, tunnel, or other large excavation. Such material may be ordinary soil and rocks, or may be heavily contaminated with chemical waste, determining how it may be disposed of. Clean spoil may be used for land reclamation.

Spoil is distinct from tailings, which is the processed material that remains after the valuable components have been extracted from ore.

The phrase originates from the French word "espoilelier", a verb conveying the meaning: to seize by violence, to plunder, to take by force.

Spoil tips may be conical in shape, and can appear as conspicuous features of the landscape, or they may be much flatter and eroded, especially if vegetation has established itself. In Loos-en-Gohelle, in the former mining area of Pas-de-Calais, France, are a series of five, very perfect cones, of which two rise 100 metres (330 ft) from the plain.

Most commonly the term is used for the piles of waste earth materials removed during an excavation process.

Spoil banks can also refer to refuse heaps formed from removal of excess surface materials. For example, alongside livestock lots spoil banks are formed of manure and other slurry periodically removed from the surface of the livestock lot areas.

Spoil tips sometimes grew to millions of tons, and, having been abandoned, remain as huge piles today. They trap solar heat, making it difficult (although not impossible) for vegetation to take root; this encourages erosion and creates dangerous, unstable slopes. Existing techniques for regreening spoil tips include the use of geotextiles to control erosion as the site is resoiled and simple vegetation such as grass is seeded on the slope.

...
Wikipedia