April 17, 2023
Not only do geologists collect waters from the surface and wells, but we occasionally collect water samples from underground adits. An adit is a flat or slightly declining underground tunnel with only one entrance to the surface that miners use to access the ore body, generally to remove ore. When mining stops, the adits locally flood. In the Critical Minerals in Mine Wastes project funded by the U.S. Geological Survey, we are examining mine wastes for their critical mineral concentrations. A critical mineral is a nonfuel mineral commodity that is essential to the economic and national security of the United States, and is from a supply chain that is vulnerable to global and national disruption. Critical minerals are essential to manufacture everyday high-tech technologies such cell phones, tablets, laptops, computer chips, solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, electric cars, desalination plants, carbon sequestration, and much more. In the mine waste project, we are characterizing mine wastes in three districts in New Mexico (Steeple Rock, Hillsboro, Black Hawk) to determine if there are any critical minerals, such as tellurium, lithium, rare earth elements or other minerals, in the mine wastes that could be recovered and perhaps pay for environmental cleanup of these sites or general mineral production. The mine waters are locally very acidic and could have leached critical minerals. If so the waters could be processed to recover critical minerals. We also are sampling the solid mine wastes, like waste rock piles (mine dumps), tailings (the waste from processing ore through a mill), and slag from the smelter. In these photos, Bureau geologists and NMT students are sampling waters from the flooded adits of the Center and Carlisle mines in the Steeple Rock district in Grant County, NM. Other photos show geologists collecting tailings (yellow sand) and slag from the smelter at the Carlisle mine.
— Virginia McLemore, Principal Senior Economic Geologist, NMBGMR
