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I don't know, Morseman. But, maybe some terminology will help you in your search. <br /> <br />Slag comes from smelters -- it's fused, solidified rock that is often sharp, glassy in appearance, and consists of whatever the smelter didn't want to extract. It's the ore from which the desired metal is recovered thermally and chemically. If it's from a steel mill, it will be mostly silica; if its from a smelter that recovers non-ferrous metals such as copper or lead, it will be mostly iron, because the copper and lead ores have a high iron content. Slag is usually chemically inert, but not always. <br /> <br />Tailings comes from concentrators/mills -- it's finely powdered rock that is usually light grey or white in color, and consists of "country rock" from which the ore has been extracted. The country rock is ground to a powder and the ore is recovered mechanically or chemically, or both. It's essentially worthless except as backfill in the hole in the ground it came out of, and is a real environmental pain because minerals and ions in it can easily leach out with rainfall. <br /> <br />Waste comes from mines. It's merely the broken rock the mine has to move to get at the ore. It's big and chunky, and usually grey-white or dark brown when it comes out of the mine, and can weather to bright yellow. <br /> <br />So if it's asbestos slag you want to know about, you want to see where the asbestos smelters are located. The slag won't move too far from them as ballast -- maybe a radius of 200-500 miles -- before the transportation charges get so high that it becomes more profitable to find a new local source of ballast. <br /> <br />Western railroads loved copper smelter and lead smelter slag ballasts. Used a lot of it on D&RGW, SP, Santa Fe, WP, UP. <br /> <br />OS
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