Publications

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) began work in Libby, Mont. in 1999 when an Emergency Response Team was sent to investigate local concern and media reports regarding asbestos-contaminated vermiculite. Since that time, the site has been granted Superfund status and site remediation to a safe level of asbestos has been ongoing. The amphibole asbestos from the Vermiculite...

Layered, ultramafic to mafic intrusions are uncommon in the geologic record, but host magmatic ore deposits containing most of the world's economic concentrations of platinum-group elements (PGE) (figs. 1 and 2). These deposits are mined primarily for their platinum, palladium, and rhodium contents (table 1). Magmatic ore deposits are derived from accumulations of crystals of metallic...

Understanding the spatial distribution of earthquake-induced landslides from specific earthquakes provides an opportunity to recognize what to expect from future events. The July 16, 2007 Mw 6.6 (MJMA 6.8) Niigata Chuetsu–Oki Japan earthquake triggered hundreds of landslides in the area surrounding the coastal city of Kashiwazaki and provides one such opportunity to evaluate the impacts...

The Middle to Late Miocene Bodie Hills volcanic field is a >700 km2, long-lived (∼9 Ma) but episodic eruptive center in the southern segment of the ancestral Cascades arc north of Mono Lake (California, U.S.). It consists of ∼20 major eruptive units, including 4 trachyandesite stratovolcanoes emplaced along the margins of the field, and numerous, more centrally located silicic...

Each chapter of the 2012 edition of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Commodity Summaries (MCS) includes information on events, trends, and issues for each mineral commodity as well as discussions and tabular presentations on domestic industry structure, Government programs, tariffs, 5-year salient statistics, and world production and resources. The MCS is the earliest...

Lithium has a number of uses but one of the most valuable is as a component of high energy-density rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Because of concerns over carbon dioxide footprint and increasing hydrocarbon fuel cost (reduced supply), lithium may become even more important in large batteries for powering all-electric and hybrid vehicles. It would take 1.4 to 3.0 kilograms of lithium

The Richfield quadrangle in southwestern Utah is known to contain a variety of porphyry Mo, skarn, polymetallic replacement and vein, alunite, and kaolin resources associated with 27-32 Ma calc-alkaline or 12-23 Ma bimodal volcano-plutonic centers in Neoproterozoic to Mesozoic carbonate and siliciclastic rocks. Four scenes of visible to shortwave-infrared image data acquired by the...

The geometry and dimensions of sedimentary basins within the Walker Lane are a result of Plio-Pleistocene transtensive deformation and partial detachment of the Sierra Nevada crustal block from the North American plate. Distinct morpho-tectonic domains lie within this active transtensive zone. The northeast end of the Walker Lane is partly buried by active volcanism of the southern...

No abstract available.

Cobalt-copper ± gold deposits of the Idaho cobalt belt, including the deposits of the Blackbird district, have been analyzed for their sulfur, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen isotope compositions to improve the understanding of ore formation. Previous genetic hypotheses have ranged widely, linking the ores to the sedimentary or diagenetic history of the host Mesoproterozoic sedimentary...

Domestic production of industrial sand and gravel in 2011 was about 30 Mt (33 million st), increasing slightly compared with 2010. Some important end uses for industrial sand and gravel include abrasives, filtration, foundry, glassmaking, hydraulic fracturing sand (frac sand) and silicon metal applications.

The element bromine is found principally as a dissolved species in seawater, evaporitic (salt) lakes and underground brines associated with petroleum deposits. Seawater contains about 65 parts per million of bromine or an estimated 100 Tt (110 trillion st). In the Middle East, the highly saline waters of the Dead Sea are estimated to contain 1 Gt (1.1billion st) of bromine. Bromine is...