Renata Dulias Livres

This book investigates the Upper Silesian Coal Basin (USCB), one of Europe's oldest and largest mining areas. It employs uniform research methods across the study area and summarizes the extensive landscape transformations caused by intensive extraction of hard coal, zinc, lead ores, and other resources, resulting in a model of anthropogenic relief. The book focuses on three main aspects: 1) Identifying anthropogenic relief forms linked to mining, presented spatially, genetically, and by age; 2) Analyzing changes in morphometric characteristics and matter circulation conditions in both open and closed systems due to mineral extraction; and 3) Estimating the extent of anthropogenic denudation through two methods based on raw-material output and morphometric analysis. No other mining area in Poland has experienced such intensive activity as the USCB in the last fifty years, accounting for 32% of total mineral extraction. From the mid-18th century to 2009, hard coal extraction in the USCB ranked sixth globally, with severe regional effects on relief. The anthropogenic denudation rate here, as well as in the Ruhr and Ostrava-Karvina Coal Basins, is several dozen to several hundred times higher than natural rates, indicating that natural processes would take tens of thousands of years to remove the same material as human mining has.