DISTRICTS, MINES, AND
GEOCHEMISTRY DATABASES
IN NEW MEXICO
Virginia T. McLemore and
Maureen Wilks
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural
Resource Department
Company annual reports
Personal visits to mines
Historical production statistics from US
Bureau of Mines, US Geological Survey, NM
Energy, Minerals and Natural Resource
Department (NM MMD), company annual
reports
New Mexico Mining Association
Many students and colleagues over the years
PREVIEW
• Purpose
• Funding
sources
• Available data
• Summary
• Unresolved
issues
Lordsburg mining district, Hidalgo County
PURPOSE
• Provide data on
districts, mines, and
mills in New Mexico
(public data only)
• To federal, state,
and local agencies,
public organizations,
private industry, and
individual citizens
Summit mine, Steeple Rock district,
Grant County
Purpose—continued
• To make informed decisions about
– Economic impacts
– Resource development and
management
– Impacts on water supplies
– Impacts on land use
– Environmental impacts (including
potential sources of AD [acid
drainage] or other MIW [mine
influenced waters])
– Physical hazard assessment and
remediation
Adit, Jicarilla
Mountains,
Lincoln County
FUNDING SOURCES
• NMBGMR
• NM State Land Office (Mineral Resource
Assessment of Luna County, NMBGMR OF-459)
• EPA (Uranium database, NMBGMR OF-461)
• ACofE (Mines database of Sierra and Otero
Counties, USGS OF)
• USGS (minerals database projects)
• USGS coal database project (NMBGMR OF572)
• OSM (Acquiring and georeferencing coal mine
maps)
AVAILABLE DATA
The New Mexico Bureau of Geology and
Mineral Resources (NMBGMR) has been
collecting data on mining districts since it
was created in 1927
The task is to convert these data into
electronic form and import into ArcGIS
Databases
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Coal fields and Mining districts
Coal mines and reserve data
Mines and mills
Geochemistry
Photographs (both recent and historic)
Bibliography
Mine maps
Mine production
Mine reserves
Drill data (Petroleum records)
Well logs (Coal library and Petroleum records)
Coal Fields and Mining Districts
• 273 coal fields and mining districts
in NM
– ~30 districts have had zero
production
• Each district is classified by
predominant commodity
• Each district can have more than
1 commodity type
• 28 coal fields
• 40 industrial minerals districts
• 173 metals districts
• 32 uranium districts
Chino copper mine
San Juan coal mine
Coal mines,
Raton
Basin,
Colfax
County
Mines and Mills Data
• Organize, catalog and scan the mining archives
• Create a database of mines in New Mexico based
on the NM Mine File Catalog (>16,000 mines) with
links to more detailed location by section, township
range files (>6000 file cards)
• More than 2000 mine plats scanned and cataloged
• Scan and catalog thousands of reports, both
published and unpublished, accompanying mine
maps, newspaper articles, assay reports, and
historical mine photographs
Mines
records by
location
and name
Mining
Archives
New Mexico Mines Database
Relational database in ACCESS that will
ultimately be put on line with GIS
capabilities
• ACCESS is commercial software and this
design is compatible with other formats
• Metadata (supporting definitions of specific
fields) can be inserted into the database
• ACCESS is flexible and data can be easily
added to the design
• Easily imported into ArcGIS
The term mine is defined here
as any mine, prospect,
mineralized outcrop, altered
area, mill, smelter, or other
mining-related facility,
including mineral wells, but
excluding geothermal wells,
petroleum wells.
Mine_id in some cases refers to
one mine feature (adit, pit, shaft,
etc.) and in other cases to
several mine features. If a mine
occurs in 2 quadrangles or 2
counties, then it receives 2
separate Mine_id numbers.
Large mines receive one Mine_id
and as many mine_feature id
numbers as needed.
Mines
• Each mine is classified by
predominant commodity
• Each mine can have more
than 1 commodity type
• 8200 mines in the
database that include
active, inactive,
abandoned, and
exploration sites
• Not all mines have
workings
• Some mines have multiple
workings
Questa mine, Taos County
Industrial Minerals
• Any rock, mineral, or
other naturally occurring
material of economic
value, excluding metals,
energy minerals, and
gemstones
• One of the nonmetallics
• Includes aggregates
White Mesa gypsum mine
M.I.C.A. mica mine (closed)
Available Data
• Location (= GIS, point and polygon data, QA/QC)
• Production, reserves, resource potential
significant deposits, drillhole data
• Geologic
• Geochemical (rock, water, etc.)
• Environmental
• Water well data
• Historical and recent photographs
• Mining methods, maps
• Ownership
• Other data
Environmental Data
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Commodities produced and present
Potential hazardous materials
Evidence of potential acid drainage
Hydrology
Receiving stream
Reclamation
Mitigation status
Sensitive environments
Chemical data (both solids and water)
OUTSIDE
INSIDE
Photograph looking north showing undeformed layers in trench
LFG-007, Goat Hill North rock pile, Questa mine, Taos County.
White lines show unit contacts.
Bench 9, Trench LFG-006
Variation of pHs along Bench 9, Trench LFG-006
10
INSIDE
OUTSIDE
9
8
7
pH
6
5
4
3
Paste pH1
2
Paste pH2
1
NAG pH
0
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Horizontal Distance from Station 9NW (ft)
Paste pH and NAG pH trench LFG-007, Goat Hill North rock pile,
Questa mine, Taos County
GHN-KMD-0056-30-02
chloritic+illitic clay areas
Chloritic clay
Electron microprobe image of clay minerals in soil matrix, Goat
Hill rock pile, Questa mine. One area contains end-member
chlorite, and the other areas are mixed. FOV 600 um
Geochemistry
100000
Nogal
Jicarilla
10000
WhiteOaks
Cornudas
1000
Gallinas
Au
Laughlin
100
10
1
1
10
100
1000
10000
Cu
Fig 8. Anamolous concentration of As is found in Laramide veins. The concentrations in samples above
25 ppm As were plotted on the geologic map (modified from hedlund, 1977)
Hillsboro district, Sierra County
Gold vs copper, alkalinerelated deposits, New Mexico
100000
Drill Data
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Drill logs
Chemistry
Cross sections
Core and
cuttings
Drill log, Jicarilla
Mountains, Lincoln County
Drill Data
Typical uranium log, Ambrosia
Lake subdistrict, McKinley County
Drill core, Saddleback Mountain,
Steeple Rock district, Grant
County
Mineral Production
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Year
Commodity by year
Coal field and mining district
Mining district by year
Some individual mine production
Copper Production 1882-2012
350,000
$900,000,000
$800,000,000
300,000
200,000
150,000
$600,000,000
Short tons
250,000
$500,000,000
$400,000,000
$300,000,000
100,000
Value in Dollars
$700,000,000
$200,000,000
50,000
$100,000,000
$0
1882
1886
1890
1894
1898
1902
1906
1910
1914
1918
1922
1926
1930
1934
1938
1942
1946
1950
1954
1958
1962
1966
1970
1974
1978
1982
1986
1990
1994
1998
2002
2006
2010
0
Years
Short tons
Value
1804-2013 >11 million short tons Cu worth >$18 billion
Gold Production 1804-2012
160,000
$70,000,000
140,000
120,000
$50,000,000
Troy ounces
100,000
$40,000,000
80,000
$30,000,000
60,000
Value in Dollars
$60,000,000
$20,000,000
40,000
$10,000,000
20,000
$0
2007
1997
1987*
1977
1967
1957
1947
1937
1927
1917
1907
1897
1887
1877
1804-1879
0
Years
Troy ounces
Value
1804-2013 >3.2 million troy ounces Au worth >$448
million
Silver Production 1804-2012
5,000,000
$35,000,000
4,500,000
$30,000,000
$25,000,000
3,000,000
2,500,000
2,000,000
Troy ounces
3,500,000
$20,000,000
$15,000,000
1,500,000
$10,000,000
Value in dollars
4,000,000
1,000,000
$5,000,000
500,000
0
$0
Years
Troy ounces
Value
1804-2013 >118 million troy ounces Ag worth >$277
million
Uranium Production
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/staff/mclemore/projects/uranium/documents/mclemore13.pdf
Reserves and Resources
• Some reserve and resource statistics by
mine or mining district and coal field
• Significant deposits identified
Significant deposits
Uranium Significant Deposits
http://nmgs.nmt.edu/repository/index.cfml?rid=2013002
SUMMARY
• Team effort
– database information
– database design and linkages
• Steps
– Design the database format ASAP
– Data input
– Use subset of data to test the project
– Develop the final product
– Use it
UNRESOLVED ISSUES
• How to provide the data to the public
• Some mines are not in districts
• How to combine databases from
different states, federal agencies, etc.
• How to include mine maps, mine plans
in the database
• How to maintain quality control of the
data
• How to continue funding this effort