Dr. Virginia McLemore

(also see: Students supported by McLemore)

• Teacher's workshop presentations:
  • The case of the scarlet streak: mineral identification
  • The NM Minerals Connection
  • Mineral ID rockin'
  • BOW
  • Edible rocks
  • Mineral Mystery text
• Geology and Mining of Uranium Deposits
  This special topics class will summarize and discuss various topics on uranium deposits, including geology, exploration, mining, and environmental aspects. The class is intended for non-geology majors as well as geology majors. The class will meet once a week for 2-3 hours with additional time allotted for field trips. There may be some lectures by guest speakers. Each student will be responsible for discussing a topic or published paper during the semester. Field trips will include examination of sedimentary sequences and uranium deposits in the Socorro area and the San Juan Basin. Students will also complete a written class project and present an oral version to the class (current student work, if appropriate, will be accepted and students can work on this as a team).
  • Lecture Notes
    • Schedule
    • Uranium_intro
    • Uranium_chemistry
    • types of uranium deposits
    • Field notes
    • uranium readings
    • midterm
    • Sampling and monitoring
    • Sustainable development
    • Sedimentary processes
    • Sandstone and limestone uranium deposits
    • Notes
    • In situ (Mark Pelizza)
    • FINAL
    • Mineral Processing 1 (Gundiler)
    • Mineral Processing 2 (Gundiler)
    • Safety
      • safety--high walls
      • safety--radon
      • Pedestrian Safety
      • Radiation safety
      • Fieldsafety
      • Signs
    • Articles
      • te_1174
      • mclemore
      • finch
      • IAEA types of deposits IAEA-TECDOC-1629
      • Lemitar carbonatites
      • Mark Pelizza chapter
      • Spring 2023--Industrial Minerals
      • Fall 2021--REE in coal
      • Fall23--Exploration Geochemistry
• Spring 2023 — Industrial Minerals
  Industrial minerals and rocks are literally the building blocks of our way of life and they are an exceptionally diverse and vital group of raw materials that underpin almost all aspects of human activity, infrastructure, and standard of living. Industrial minerals and rocks are used in the manufacture of many products, from ceramics to plastics and refractories to paper. Although industrial minerals permeate every aspect of daily life, their presence and their role are typically invisible. A widely used definition of industrial minerals and rocks is “any rock, mineral, or other naturally occurring substance of economic value, exclusive of metal ores, mineral fuels, and gemstones: one of the non-metallics”. This class will explore the different commodities that are considered industrial rocks and minerals, from exploration, development, mining, processing, and marketing. Field trips to industrial mineral mines will be included.
• • Lectures
    • 1 Introduction
    • 2 Sampling
    • 3 Geology
    • 4 geology-2
    • 5 beryllium
    • 6 Tellurium
    • 7 Databases
    • 8 Marketing
    • 9 REE
  • MIDTERM due March 20
  • Field Trips
    • Lemitar handout
    • Winston23
    • Newcomer paper
    • Humates
  • Extra Readings and information
    • sampling plan
    • HASP
    • SELENIUM AND TELLURIUM: STATE OF THE MARKETS, THE CRISIS, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
    • Yano, 2013, TRACE ELEMENTS IN PORPHYRY COPPER SYSTEMS AS STRATEGIC MINERALS
    • M Glover and M Warnken, Cities as Mine Sites of the Future
    • N Pajunen and K Heiskanen DRIVERS AND BARRIERS IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN – THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE COMPLEXITY OF RECYCLING IN THE INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM
    • McLemore (1983) carbonatites
    • McLemoe (2020) episyenites
    • 7 Mountain Pass
    • 7 Bokan Mountain 1
    • 7 Bokan Mountain 2
    • 7 Review of REE production, processing, environmental issues
    • 8 Barton and Young
    • 8 MinEng
    • 8 PP1802e
    • 9 Spence-Jones
    • 9 CrippleCreek
    • 9 DeerHorn
    • 9 USGS
    • 10 Taylor
    • 10 Munk
    • 10 Critical
    • 10 minerals
    • 10 pp1802
    • 10 sir
  • Lemitar carbonatites
    • McLemore (1983, 1989,1990)
    • Map
• Fall 2021 — REE in coal
  • SYLLABUS
  • Introduction
• Fall23 — Exploration Geochemistry
  Multi-element geochemistry is one of the most powerful tools available to an exploration geologist. In this course, we will learn the principles and methods of lithogeochemical and surficial geochemical exploration, including planning, sampling, analysis, QAQC, data handling, plotting and data analysis (basic geostatistics in ioGAS), and interpretation. You will also learn how to design effective geochemical sampling programs, managing large multi-element databases, and correctly interpret the data.
• Schedule
• HASP
• Lectures
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 Sampling
  • 3 episyenites_carb
  • 4 sampling
  • 5 Geochem
  • 6 Geochem
  • 7 COI_NURE assign
  • References on Zuni Mountains mining district see link