Morphogenetic approach to man-made landforms due to opencast mining of porcelain clays and silica sands, around Seto City, Aichi Prefecture, central Japan.

Abstract

Landforms of mining fields are generally characterized by disordered distribution of large mining hollows such as honeycombs. Each hollow consists of steep cliffs, step-like benches, abandoned roads and settling basins in the bottom of hollows. The Mizuno Gravel Bed which is called the 'surface layer' by mine workers is excavated and transported to the abandoned mining fields or the upper part of valleys to make flat or rolling surfaces. New machines such as large bulldozers, power-shovels and loader shovels have greatly exaggerated the landform transformation. Present detailed features such as height and width of bench cliffs, benches and roads of mining fields seem to be provided by the capacity and function of these heavy machines and dump cars. -from English summary