Better understanding of mineral deposits and their impact on the environment, including the water system, is necessary for the protection of public health. The USGS is working with other federal and state agencies to identify the environmental behavior of these deposits and their waste products. USGS scientists are using geospatial data (data that can be mapped) to prioritize abandoned mine land sites that are of concern in California.
Since 2016, the USGS has been involved in a joint effort with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and California Department of Toxic Substances Control to identify mineral deposit types in abandoned mine lands in California. The USGS role in this partnership has been to identify deposit types for approximately 40,000 of the 42,700 California mine site entries in its Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS).
USGS mineral deposit type classifications are useful in evaluating chemical risk factors at abandoned mine sites. To date, USGS scientists have identified 282 different categories for MRDS entries. Scientists also developed a draft of relative hazard rankings for each deposit type, for prioritizing abandoned mine lands for preliminary risk assessment. Preliminary results indicate that the ranking schemes identify most mine sites known to be risks to human health and the environment, along with other sites that may warrant investigation. This information has proven critical to identifying areas of concern.
Below are other science projects associated with this project.
Examining Erosion at Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park, a Sierra Nevada Gold Mine
Technical Support to the U.S. EPA for Leviathan Mine, Alpine County, California
Iron Mountain: An Extraordinary and Extreme Environment
- Overview
Better understanding of mineral deposits and their impact on the environment, including the water system, is necessary for the protection of public health. The USGS is working with other federal and state agencies to identify the environmental behavior of these deposits and their waste products. USGS scientists are using geospatial data (data that can be mapped) to prioritize abandoned mine land sites that are of concern in California.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.Map of California showing more than 42,000 mine sites in the USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) database. Since 2016, the USGS has been involved in a joint effort with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and California Department of Toxic Substances Control to identify mineral deposit types in abandoned mine lands in California. The USGS role in this partnership has been to identify deposit types for approximately 40,000 of the 42,700 California mine site entries in its Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS).
USGS mineral deposit type classifications are useful in evaluating chemical risk factors at abandoned mine sites. To date, USGS scientists have identified 282 different categories for MRDS entries. Scientists also developed a draft of relative hazard rankings for each deposit type, for prioritizing abandoned mine lands for preliminary risk assessment. Preliminary results indicate that the ranking schemes identify most mine sites known to be risks to human health and the environment, along with other sites that may warrant investigation. This information has proven critical to identifying areas of concern.
- Science
Below are other science projects associated with this project.
Examining Erosion at Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park, a Sierra Nevada Gold Mine
Located in Nevada County, California, Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park was the Sierra Nevada’s largest hydraulic gold mine, operating from 1866 to 1884. Historically, part of the process of hydraulic mining included using mercury to extract gold from produced sediment through the process of amalgamation. This process left thousands of pounds of mercury and other heavy metals in the area...Technical Support to the U.S. EPA for Leviathan Mine, Alpine County, California
The Leviathan Mine, located in Alpine County is one of the worst sites in California for acid mine drainage. The site is on the National Priority List for CERCLA (Superfund) (U.S. EPA, 2011) and U.S. EPA is working with ARCO/BP (the Responsible Party) on designing and implementing site remediation. The USGS did research there during the 1980s on geochemistry (e.g., Nordstrom and Ball, 1986). The...Iron Mountain: An Extraordinary and Extreme Environment
At its peak production, Iron Mountain ranked as the tenth largest copper production site in the world, sixth in the U.S. and first in California. During its operation, from 1879 - 1963, ten different mines throughout the site's 4,400 acres were the source of not just copper, but also silver, iron, gold, zinc and pyrite (iron sulfide).A century of active mining at Iron Mountain took an... - Partners