Rock Talk Winter 2005 - Laserfiche WebLink

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NASA study Matt Sares, David Bird, and consulting remote sensing geologists continued their work on a NASA grant using hyper - spectral remote sensing to characterize source rocks of acid rock drainage (ARD) and downstream water quality impacts. The study area is the upper Arkansas River basin near Leadville. Previous years focused on natural ARD in the Lake Creek watershed upstream of Twin Lakes Reservoir. This year, the focus was on the mainstem of the Arkansas River and mining - related sources of ARD. The river has little direct ARD drainage since active water treat- ment plants were installed on the Leadville Drain and California Gulch, but historic mine tailings washed down- stream provide a continuing source of metals to the Arkansas River. Hyperspec- tral imagery has been processed in selected areas along the river to identify areas of tailings and characterize the mineralogy of these deposits. Project geologists have been involved in several outreach events to explain the project to potential users of the technol- ogy. Presentations were given at NASA and EPA Headquarters in Washington, DC, National States Geographic Infor- mation Council Conference, Office of Surface Mining Geospatial Technology Conference, Tailings and Mine Waste Conference, American Society of Min- ing and Reclamation Conference. The project team also hosted the annual Colorado -AIPG field workshop in the project study area near Leadville. Upper Arkansas River Basin, view to the west from Leadville Mining District. Leadville is at middle right, Turquoise Lake is just west of Leadville, and Mount Massive at the skyline on left. The CGS is carrying out NASA - funded research into natural and anthropogenic contamination of waters in this area. Mine Subsidence Information Center The Mine Subsidence Information Cen- ter (MSIC) is operated by the CGS under a grant from the Office of Surface Min- ing. Its purpose is to provide information to the public regarding the locations of abandoned coal mines throughout the state. The CGS maintains a library of reports and maps that address mine sub- sidence hazards and risks, and we distrib- ute information about the Colorado Mine Subsidence Protection Program (MSPP). We have recently upgraded our Web site to make more information available about coal mine subsidence, the MSIC, and the MSPP program (under "Programs and Projects "). Also available on the site are scanned images of Extent of Mining maps for Colorado's Front Range. About 25% of our 3,000 detailed mine map sheets were scanned during 2004; copies of these maps are available to the public at a modest charge, by special order. Celia Greenman manages this program. Subsidence into shallow abandoned coal mines near Marshall, Colorado CGS ROCKTALK Vol. 8, No. 1