The impact of tailings flow on the abundance of deep-sea meiofauna in Sumbawa waters

Abstract

The potential effect of the mining activity in Batu Hijau, Sumbawa, Indonesia, is a by-product called tailings. Before being discharged into the sea, the tailings have been carefully processed on land, so that do not contain chemical elements that are harmful to living resources. The tailing slurry flowing with velocity of 5.7-6.4 meters/second at the opening of pipeline and 0.5-1.0 meter/second along the seabed, and finally come to rest at a depth of 3,000-4,000 meters. From forty sediment sampled was observed that six sampling sites were not found any meiofauna, whereas other sites meiofauna found with varied taxa diversity and its abundance. From the analysis on relationship between meiofauna abundance and the percentage of tailings it can be concluded that high percentage of tailings greatly influences the taxa diversity and meiofauna abundance in sediments. However, besides the presence of tailing as mentioned above, physical instability of the sediment as the impact of tailings flow is highly influential to the meiofauna community.