Publications

Tellurium (Te) is a very rare element that averages only 3 parts per billion in Earth’s upper crust. It shows a close association with gold and may be present in orebodies of most gold deposit types at levels of tens to hundreds of parts per million. In large-tonnage mineral deposits, such as porphyry copper and seafloor volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits, sulfide minerals may contain...

Germanium and indium are two important elements used in electronics devices, flat-panel display screens, light-emitting diodes, night vision devices, optical fiber, optical lens systems, and solar power arrays. Germanium and indium are treated together in this chapter because they have similar technological uses and because both are recovered as byproducts, mainly from copper and zinc...

Cobalt is a silvery gray metal that has diverse uses based on certain key properties, including ferromagnetism, hardness and wear-resistance when alloyed with other metals, low thermal and electrical conductivity, high melting point, multiple valences, and production of intense blue colors when combined with silica. Cobalt is used mostly in cathodes in rechargeable batteries and in...

The platinum-group elements (PGEs)—platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, and osmium—are metals that have similar physical and chemical properties and tend to occur together in nature. PGEs are indispensable to many industrial applications but are mined in only a few places. The availability and accessibility of PGEs could be disrupted by economic, environmental, political...

Rhenium is one of the rarest elements in Earth’s continental crust; its estimated average crustal abundance is less than 1 part per billion. Rhenium is a metal that has an extremely high melting point and a heat-stable crystalline structure. More than 80 percent of the rhenium consumed in the world is used in high-temperature superalloys, especially those used to make turbine blades for...

Barite (barium sulfate, BaSO4) is vital to the oil and gas industry because it is a key constituent of the mud used to drill oil and gas wells. Elemental barium is an additive in optical glass, ceramic glazes, and other products. Within the United States, barite is produced mainly from mines in Nevada. Imports in 2011 (the latest year for which complete data were available) accounted for...

This report describes the discovery and geology of two near-surface uranium deposits within calcareous lacustrine strata of Pleistocene age in west Texas, United States. Calcrete uranium deposits have not been previously reported in the United States. The west Texas uranium deposits share characteristics with some calcrete uranium deposits in Western Australia—uranium-vanadium minerals...

The Colorado River in the southwestern U.S. provides an excellent natural laboratory for studying the origins of a continent-scale river system, because deposits that formed prior to and during river initiation are well exposed in the lower river valley and nearby basinal sink. This paper presents a synthesis of regional stratigraphy, sedimentology, and micropaleontology from the...

Adakitic intrusions are supposed to have a close genetic and spatial relationship to porphyry Cu deposits. However, the genesis of adakitic intrusions is still under dispute. Here, we describe newly discovered intrusive complex rocks, which are composed of ore-bearing, layered magnetite-bearing gabbroic and adakitic rocks in Jiamate, East Junggar, NW China. These Jiamate Complex...

Slag, an abundant byproduct from the pyrometallurgical processing of ores, can be an environmental liability or a valuable resource. The most common environmental impact of slag is from the leaching of potentially toxic elements, acidity, or alkalinity that may impact nearby soils and surface water and groundwater. Factors that influence its environmental behavior include physical...

Isotopic discrimination can be an effective tool in establishing a direct link between sources of Pb contamination and the presence of anomalously high concentrations of Pb in waters, soils, and organisms. Residential wells supplying water containing up to 1600 ppb Pb to houses built on the former Mohr orchards commercial site, near Allentown, Pennsylvania, United States, were evaluated...

During the last 10-20 years, Geological Surveys around the world have undertaken a major effort towards delivering fully harmonized and tightly quality-controlled low-density multi-element soil geochemical maps and datasets of vast regions including up to whole continents. Concentrations of between 45 and 60 elements commonly have been determined in a variety of different regolith types...