Mine Plan Design

USGS Director: Importance of State Geological Surveys

The following written statement by USGS Director Marcia McNutt was released on November 22, 2011:

For more than 130 years, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has been working in partnership with State Geological Surveys to provide science information that is vitally important to the U.S. economy, the safety and health of American citizens, and the sustainability and security of their natural resources. The USGS fully recognizes and supports the need for State geological surveys to help meet the growing challenges society faces in its interface with the natural world on a planet undergoing modification from both natural and man-made causes.

The USGS cannot fully implement our mission without the State geological surveys. Over our long and productive history of partnership, we have established successful ways of working together to mutually support our citizenry and reinforce the best features of both Federal- and State-based government, without overlap or duplication. For example, the USGS, with input from States, provides national standards, benchmarks, and datums, such that individual State products can be linked at the State boundaries. However, without the contributions of the States,
national maps, data bases, models, and resource assessments would be sparsely populated. This symbiotic relationship allows the State surveys the latitude to determine which data sets are most important to their constituencies, while knowing that those data sets can be linked within a regional context, and that the scientific standards are authoritative.

Partnerships such as this are even more important as resources at the Federal and State level continue to decline. State geological surveys maintain a network of applied geoscience activities throughout the country independent of the distribution of the Federal workforce. By continuing to leverage our resources, information and knowledge, we will help the Nation and States address future economic, sociological, environmental and resource challenges now and for generations to come.
[signed]
Marcia McNutt
Director

Park Service geology reports on Coronado and Ft. Bowie monuments

The National Park Service Geologic Resources Division released two new Geologic Resources Inventory (GRI) reports for two Arizona parks in the Intermountain Region: Coronado National Memorial (CORO) [right], and Fort Bowie national Historic Site (FOBO).

The reports are companion documents to previously released digital geologic map data for each park and aid in the map's use for resource management.

The GRI report is written for resource managers to assist in resource management and science-based decision making, but may also be useful for interpretation. The report discusses potential geologic issues facing resource managers at the park, distinctive geologic features and processes present within the park, and the geologic history leading to the park’s present landscape. A map unit properties table summarizes the main features, characteristics, and potential management issues for all of the rock units on the geologic map.

The reports are technically reviewed by geologic experts, professionally edited, and undergo a management review to ensure compliance with NPS policies. The reports are submitted as part of the Natural Resource Program Center's Natural Resource Report (NRR) series and are posted on-line on the GRI publications webpage. Both high- and low-resolution PDFs are available for download at this site as is a link to the digital geologic data.

AZGS geologists Mike Conway and Ann Youberg, and Tucson consulting geologist John Bezy were acknowledged for their advice and reviews on the reports.

New uses for old mines

There's a recent fun post at the Australian blog The Conversation that looks at old mines and surface facilities that were converted into other uses such as stores, hotels, wedding chapels, classrooms, biofuel plants, storage vaults, and so on. Examples are from all over the world. [Right, Cricova, Moldava limestone mine used as a wine cellar. ]

Here in the U.S., former underground salt mines in Kansas are used to store bank records, original copies of Hollywood movies, and specialty items requiring constant temperature and humidity. The old Homestake gold mine is slated to become an underground physics lab.

The blog post alerted me to the existence of the Post-Mining Alliance, "an independent, not-for-profit group, based at the UK’s Eden Project - itself a former clay mining pit transformed into an environmental tourism attraction and educational charity."

Decisions pending on Rosemont electric lines, wetlands...

The next two challenges to the Rosemont copper mine in the Santa Rita Mountains are approval of the electric transmission line by the Arizona Corporation Commission, and getting Clean Water Act permits from the Army Corps of Engineers which covers "dredging and filling of regulated watercourses with material from the mine property."

The ACC has scheduled five days of hearings in Tucson, beginning Dec. 12 on the proposed 138 kV transmission line from the proposed Toro switchyard to the Rosemont substation. Additional days of hearings may be required. [Right, transmission line map. Credit, Rosemont Copper]

Geology cause of poor water quality in parts of Colorado

In a new report that has implications for many Western states, the Colorado Geological Survey found that the natural geology in the headwaters of numerous streams is the source of poor surface water quality downstream. [Right, this stream, in the East Mancos River headwaters in the La Plata Mountains of southwest Colorado, is naturally acidic with high concentrations of metals because of the surrounding geology. Credit, Colorado Geological Survey]

The report, titled “Natural Acid Rock Drainage Associated with Hydrothermally Altered Terrane in Colorado,” identifies a number of streams in eleven different headwater areas of Colorado where surface water is acidic and has high concentrations of metals upstream of any significant human impacts.

Rocks in these areas were altered by intensely hot water circulating in the earth’s crust, often associated with volcanic activity during Colorado’s geologic past. The “hydrothermal alteration” of the rocks changed their composition by dissolving some minerals and depositing others. In the affected areas, the hydrothermal-alteration process deposited metal-sulfide minerals, commonly pyrite (fool’s gold), in the rocks.

When these rocks are exposed at the surface, they interact with oxygen and the iron sulfide "rusts" to form iron oxide minerals, creating striking yellow, orange, and red colors – similar to the oxidation of metal in an old rusty car. “Acid rock drainage” occurs when the sulfur that is displaced by the oxygen combines with water to form weak sulfuric acid. The acidic water then dissolves minerals from the bedrock, often adding significant amounts of dissolved metals to these headwater streams. Natural acid rock drainage has been active in Colorado for thousands, possibly millions of years.

Hydrothermally altered rocks occur across many of the geologically active states in the Western U.S., including Arizona.

[Quotes taken from CGS announcement.]

First dinosaur trackway in Nevada found outside Las Vegas

An announcement from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is getting a lot of attention in the paleontology world. BLM paleontologists

"have confirmed fossilized tracks (footprints) made 180 to 190 million years ago in sandstone within Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. This is the first documented dinosaur tracksite in Nevada.
Dubbed the Red Rock Tracksite, dozens of tracks from the Early Jurassic period have currently been documented. [Right, 5" across footprint from the Red Rock site. Credit, BLM as reproduced in the Las Vegas Review-Journal]
At this point, two types of tracks and trackways are recognized from the site:
Grallator tracks are footprints made by small theropod dinosaurs (two-legged, three-toed, meat-eating dinosaurs)
Octopodichnus tracks are footprints made by arthropods (possibly similar to modern spiders and scorpions)"

The Smithsonian is blogging about it as well. Red Rocks is about a 20 minute drive northwest of the Vegas Strip.

Preview of petrified wood coming to the Tucson gem & mineral show

Ralph Thompson with Russell-Zuhl forwarded these photos of two fossil sequoia logs he recovered in Oregon this past summer. He just finished polishing a slice of each, one as a round and the other as a board cut and says the round is the largest ever polished and is 68" x 90." The board cut is 50" x 102" with "wonderful patterns" and is expected to be made into a desk or table. Expect to see them at the upcoming Tucson Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Showcase.