Studies on opencast mines have indicated that the spontaneous colonization of excavations and sedimentation tanks by vegetation is determined not only by the substratum and the land relief, but also by the hydrological and hydrochemical relations in the exploitation hollow. Sometimes, biological invasions can also disturb the natural revegetation. Robinia pseudoacacia L. black locust is an invasive alien species that frequently colonizes sandy habitats. Thirty study plots were randomly established on four types of sites: (1) sandy sediments, extremely dry places located mainly on heaps of post-washer slime; (2) sandy sediments, dry areas that are periodically flooded and have pulp; (3) clay sediments, damp areas that are periodically submerged, and (4) the control, a forest with R. pseudoacacia in its neighborhood. A total of 94 species of vascular plants and seven species of mosses were found. The vegetation at the sites differs and the role of the black locust increases along the dryness gradient and developmental phase of vegetation. Older phases of succession resemble a forest in the surrounding area. It is a R. pseudoacacia species-poor monodominant stand that has been forming for around 30 years. A lack of trees and dense grasses favor the successful invasion of the black locust on man-made sandy habitats.
Non-reclaimed sandpits are spontaneously colonised by plants [1-5]. The colonisation of these areas by plants depends primarily on local habitat factors such as light, the granulometric composition of the soil, pH, soil fertility, moisture, etc. [6-7]. Disused sandpits are mostly spontaneously entered by xerophytic andoligotrophic species, mainly from psammophilous grasslands and ruderal habitats [1-3], thereby creating species-poor phytocoenoses. Much less frequently, the development of wetlands occurs at the bottom of the excavation at the groundwater outflow [8-10]. Objects of this type were found within a few non-recultivated sand or gravel pits, mainly in
Underground mining of mineral resources, including coal, may lead to deformation of the terrain, with the greatest deformities occurring when the operation is carried out using the longwall top coal caving system. A deformation on the surface, known as a subsidence basin, can develop as a result of this system (Chudek & Sapicki, 2004;Kołodziejczyk & Wesołowski, 2010; Figure 1). The elevation is reduced from 0.7 to 0.8 of the thickness of the mined coal seam.There are numerous examples of this type of deformation in mining areas, as described by Gorol (2011), Michalczyk et al. (2007), Wójcik (2013 and Żmuda (1973). Examples of Polish dam reservoirs are not isolated in regard to this phenomenon because subsidence processes have also been noted in many mining other areas in the world in which exploitation is, or will be, conducted using the top coal caving system and which may experience similar geomorpho-
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