What's new from USGS Western Mineral Resources?

USGS Scientist Awarded Fellowship to Study Element Cycling in Aquatic Systems:

USGS research geochemist Laurie Balistrieri recently received a Gledden Visiting Senior Fellowship, awarded to researchers in applied sciences, to collaborate with colleagues at the University of Western Australia. Balistrieri will be working at the university August-November (2008) to test a model that describes the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, phosphate, and metals in bottom sediments of aquatic systems, incorporating the model into three dimensional models of the water column, and using the coupled models to examine the interplay of physical and biogeochemical processes on the cycling of metals and nutrients in a lake affected by mining activities. The result will be a state-of-the-art tool that can be used by scientific, management, and regulatory agencies to assess element cycling and test various scenarios in aquatic systems.

2008 Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration annual meeting "New Horizons/New Challenges"

During the 2008 SME annual meeting, Mineral Resources Program staff chaired a technical session entitled Rare Earths-Mining, Geology, and Metal. Consumption of rare earths has increased worldwide, resulting in increased prices for most rare-earth products and a shortfall in supply. Increased use of rare earths is expected to continue in many applications, especially automotive catalytic converters, permanent magnets, and rechargeable batteries. The USGS sponsored a workshop titled Mineral Materials for Emerging Technologies to foster collaboration and input from leaders in the industrial minerals community for current and future USGS minerals research.  Mineral Resources Program staff are developing a new project on mineral materials most critical to the growth of the national economy, especially minerals required for frontier technologies. MRP staff also hosted a booth during the exhibit portion of the meeting. Information regarding recently released publications and current/completed projects was disseminated.

Products

• Understanding Metal Pathways in Mineralized Ecosystems
• Understanding Contaminants Associated with Mineral Deposits
• Preliminary Non-Fuel Mineral Resource Assessment of Afghanistan
• USGS Reference Materials Program: Serving the Needs of the Global Analytical Community
• Integrated Geologic, Geochemical, and Geophysical Studies in Big Bend National Park
• Earth Science Studies in Support of Public Policy Development and Land Stewardship—Headwaters Province, Idaho and Montana
• Mineral Commodity Summaries

Projects

• Assessment Techniques for Concealed Mineral Resources
• Mineral Resources On-line Spatial Data
• Metallogenic Evolution of Mesoproterozoic Sedimentary Rocks in Idaho and Montana
• Pathways of Metal Transfer from Mineralized Sources to Bio-receptors
• Quantitative Global Mineral-Resource Assessments

Nevada Supervolcano's Flesh Exposed

The fault-riddled landscape of northern Nevada has sliced and diced the remains of one of the world's largest volcanoes, providing a rare chance to inspect the innards of Caetano caldera, the so-called "supervolcano." One reason the Caetano caldera is so special -- Nevada's faulted, blocky crust there has slid and tilted so the insides are visible on the surface, like books on a shelf without a bookend. "You can actually put your hands on the rocks," said geologist David John, of the USGS. John is also the author of a paper about the Caetano caldera in the February edition of the journal Geosphere. More information can be found in an article posted on "Discovery News" on the Discovery Channel website.

USGS Shares Department of Defense Award for Technical Excellence

On Dec. 4, a joint USGS-U.S. Air Force-Texas Tech University effort was recognized with an award presented by the Department of Defense, Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program, for the "Project-of-the-Year" in the Environmental Restoration Focus Area. The award was presented at the annual Partners in Environmental Technology Technical Symposium in Washington, DC for the research project on "The Identification and Characterization of Natural Sources of Perchlorate". Each year, projects are recognized that exhibit technical excellence and have helped the DoD achieve its mission while improving its environmental performance. The principal USGS investigator on this project, Greta J. Orris, was one of the initial people to identify the presence of naturally-occurring perchlorate. Much of the success of this project has been due to the ongoing cooperation with other USGS researchers including D. Stonestrom, J. Betancourt, M. Walvoord, D. Smith, and many others from the water, biology, and geology disciplines within the USGS.

Western Minerals scientists participate in the Ores and Orogenesis symposium

The U.S. Geological Survey and the Arizona Geological Society were among the cosponsoring organizations of the "Ores and Orogenesis: Circum-Pacific Tectonics, Geologic Evolution, and Ore Deposits" held September 26 - 29, 2007, in Tucson, AZ. There were approximately 168 presentations, 84 posters, and 12 field trips attended by over 800 registrants from around the world. Western Mineral Resource Team members authored 9 talks, presented 2 posters, led a field trip, and served on the organizing committee. Western Minerals scientists' talks and posters are listed below with links to their abstracts. These, as well as other talks/posters that were presented, are available on the AGS symposium website.

Talks

• Comparisons between Cretaceous-Tertiary gold-silver-polymetallic provinces of northeast Russia and the Alaska-Yukon Regions, Circum North-Pacific - by Bundtzen, Thomas K., Goryachev, Nikolai, and Nokleberg, Warren
• Fate of historic metal releases from the Coeur d' Alene mining district, northern Idaho - by Box, Stephen, Balistrieri, Laurie, and Bookstrom, Arthur
• Geochemical mass-balance modeling of the upper crust of the Arizona Porphyry Province, Ray region, southeast Arizona: Initial results - by Haxel, Gordon, Johnson, David A., and Barton, Mark
• Metallogenesis of the Russian Far East and Alaska - by Nokleberg, Warren, and others
• Metallogeny of Hg, Sb, and Au-Hg deposits in the Pacific active continental margins - by Obolenskiy, Alexander, Borisenko, Alexander, Naumov, Evgeniy. and Nokleberg, Warren
• Porphyry copper life cycles: Challenges and Opportunities in southwestern North America - by Barton, Mark, Seedorff, Eric, and Kamilli, Robert
• The economic life-cycle of porphyry copper mining - by Long, Keith
• Using alluvial basin groundwater chemistry to study dispersion from porphyry copper deposits in Arizona - by Bolm, Karen, and Hayes, Timothy
• VMS deposits of the peralkaline-hosted Bonnifield and calc-alkaline-hosted Delta districts, east-central Alaska -by Cynthia Dusel-Bacon & others

Posters

• Comparative global production of the chemical elements, a geochemical perspective; and the concept of underutilized elements - by Haxel, Gordon
• Geology and geochemistry of Jurassic plutonic rocks, Baboquivari Mountains, South-Central Arizona - by Haxel, Gordon

Field Trips

• Bob Kamilli, Tim Hayes, and Gordon Haxel were among the leaders of the Laramide porphyry copper systems and superimposed Tertiary extension: A life-cycle approach to the Globe-Superior-Ray area field trip.

Symposium committee members from USGS included Karen Bolm, Bob Kamilli, Greta Orris and Dean Kleinkopf (emeritus).

Linking the release of elements from mineralized sources to their uptake by biological organisms

Understanding metal pathways in mineralized ecosystems: by Balistrieri, L.S., Foster, A.L., Gough, L.P., Gray, Floyd, Rytuba, J.J., and Stillings, L.L., 2007, U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1317, 12 p.

The mid 1800s marked the beginning of a long and colorful history of mining in the western US that has left a legacy of approximately 11,000 abandoned hard rock mine sites.  At many of these sites, historical mining activities resulted in adverse impacts to the quality of water and sediment and to the health of humans and other biota.  Successful management of these ecosystems requires an understanding of the processes that are responsible for the distributions, concentrations, and bioavailability of potentially toxic elements, such as arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), selenium (Se), and zinc (Zn), in the environment.  Such understanding is used to identify and target those processes or pathways that have the greatest immediate and long-term impact on the environment and health of biota, and is the scientific foundation for making decisions, developing strategy, and assessing mitigation and remediation alternatives by local, state, and other federal agencies charged with minimizing the environmental and health impacts of the elements.  The Pathways Project is focused on improving our understanding of how elements are mobilized from mineralized sources, transported through the environment, and become available to humans and other biota. For more information about USGS studies on the pathways of metal transfer see Pathways of Metal Transfer from Mineralized Sources to Bio-receptors project pages.

Flowchart showing fate of mercury in the environment

3-D Model Shows Distribution of Hydrothermally Altered Rocks on Mount Adams, Washington

Stratovolcanoes, such as those that comprise the Cascade Range in Washington, Oregon, and northern California can be weakened by migration and circulation of hot fluids from deep below the surface. This process is called hydrothermal alteration, and can be particularly damaging when clay-rich altered rocks are later saturated with water. The likelihood of catastrophic collapse increases with the presence of weakened altered rocks and the collapse of the volcano edifice, in turn, can trigger destructive debris flows that are known to extend long distances from the volcano. Because hydrothermally altered rocks are an integral component of many mineral deposits, the Mineral Resources Program (MRP) has long supported research to study them. Newly completed research demonstrates that the information acquired can also be used to aid evaluation of volcanic hazards. At Mount Adams, Washington, a dormant stratovolcano in the Cascade Range, hydrothermal alteration is ongoing and new high-resolution geophysical data over the edifice of the volcano, combined with geologic mapping and rock property measurements, have been used to build a three-dimensional model of hydrothermally altered rocks. Altered rocks are postulated to extend to depths greater than 1000 m beneath the summit and to encompass more than 1.5 km³ total volume of material in the central core north of the summit. The three-dimensional model can be used to understand hydrothermal alteration and mineral-deposit-forming processes, as well as to aid in the evaluation of the debris avalanche hazard associated with hydrothermal alteration and in quantitative models of slope stability for hazards assessments conducted by the Volcano Hazards Program and used by a variety of local planners in the region. Ensuring the availability of up-to-date quantitative assessments of potential for undiscovered mineral deposits is a fundamental goal of the Mineral Resources Program. For more information on hydrothermally altered rocks in the Cascade Range see Resources and Hazards of Hydrothermal Systems in Cascades Volcanoes or Mineral Systems of the Ancestral and Modern Cenozoic Cascades Arcs and central California Coast Ranges, Western USA project pages.

View of the southwest side of Mount Adams showing hydrothermal alteration on the edifice (white and yellow areas near top of cone), the White Salmon glacier, and, in the foreground, the young debris flow known as the Salt Creek lahar (deposited less than 200 years before present) that contains abundant blocks of hydrothermally altered rocks derived from near the summit.