ACID MINE DRAINAGE WATERCOLOR
The Fall 2023 Energy Afterlives 360 visited an abandoned coal mine in the Pennsylvania Anthracite Field. The mine is gushing water contaminated with "Acid Mine Drainage:" a slurry of acid and iron that results from coal mining practices.
The students harvested iron gunk from the contaminated stream — as well as local coal — brought them back to Bryn Mawr, and processed them into paint pigments. They then analyzed data about stream contamination in PA, and used the AMD and coal paints to represent the data as part of our final exhibition. .