American Mining Hall of Fame awards

The American Mining Hall of Fame Annual Banquet and Fundraiser was held at the University Marriott in Tucson on Saturday evening, hosted by the Mining Foundation of the Southwest. The 2009 Inductee and Guest of Honor was Tom Albanese, CEO of Rio Tinto.

Other recognition included:
Inductees from Mining's Past
Allan Bowman and Frank McQuiston

Medals of Merit
Mary Poulton and Jean-Michel Rendu

Industry Partnership Award
Boart Longyear Company

Presidential Citation
Caterpillar, Inc.

Big turnout for SME Arizona conference

The turnout for this year's SME Arizona conference at the Hilton Conquistador in Tucson on Monday was huge, although I don't have hard numbers. AZGS Senior Geologist Jon Spencer presented his "Reconstruction of Cenozoic Tectonic Extension in Southeastern Arizona and Implications for Porphyry-Copper Exploration."

One of the more interesting tidbits - the Ray mine is adding four new 700-ton capacity trucks to their fleet each year and linking them into a GPS-based system for centralized management.

I missed out on the great set of talks to attend the hearing of the Ad Hoc Committee on Mining Regulations in Phoenix.

Arizona coverage with new generation topo maps

http://nationalmap.gov/ustopo/

Most of Arizona is now covered with the USGS's "next generation" topographic map, "US Topo."

In an announcement, USGS says

US Topo maps are available free on the Web. Each map quadrangle is constructed in GeoPDF® format from key layers of geographic data – orthoimagery, roads, geographic names, contours and hydrographic features - found in The National Map, which is a nationwide collection of integrated data from local, State, Federal, and other sources.

US Topo users can turn geographic data layers on and off as needed; zoom in and out to highlight specific features or see a broader context; and print the maps, in their entirety or in customized sections, on a wide variety of printing devices. Additional analytical tools are available free for download. File size for each digital 7.5-minute quadrangle is about 15-20 megabytes.

Uranium shortage on the horizon?

The world may experience a shortage of uranium to fuel nuclear power plants in the next decade or so, according to international energy experts as reported in the Economist magazine. The problem is that 40% of the world supply comes from recycling uranium from weapons and other sources, that are being quickly depleted. [right, highly enriched uranium recycled from scraps. Credit. US Dept. of Energy]

But as demand for new uranium resources increase, different groups predict higher prices, innovative mining techniques, unconventional sources or some combination of them all. Pessimists argue that prices will go so high as to shut down any nuclear renaissance that develops to offer carbon dioxide-free power.

Long-wavelenght magnetic anomaly map of the U.S.

The USGS has released a revised "long-wavelength (50–2,500 km) content of the regional magnetic anomaly compilation for the conterminous United States by utilizing a nearly homogeneous set of National Uranium Resource Evaluation (NURE) magnetic surveys flown from 1975 to 1981."

The authors "created a preliminary, full spectrum, 1.25-km magnetic anomaly grid from a database by combining short-wavelength magnetic anomalies from the North American Magnetic Anomaly Map (NAMAM) and long-wavelength anomalies from NURE using a Gaussian filter centered at 50-km wavelength,... useful for analyzing geodynamic aspects of the crustal and mantle magnetic field that require precise long-wavelength information."

The file can be downloaded from the ftp site below.

Ref: A Preliminary, Full Spectrum, Magnetic Anomaly Grid of the United States with Improved Long Wavelengths for Studying Continental Dynamics: A Website for Distribution of Data
By D. Ravat, C. Finn, P. Hill, R. Kucks, J. Phillips, R. Blakely, C. Bouligand, T. Sabaka, A. Elshayat, A. Aref, and E. Elawadi, Open-File Report 2009–1258, U.S. Geological Survey
ftp://ftpext.usgs.gov/pub/cr/co/denver/musette/tmp/outgoing/ravat/

Did comet broil the dinosaurs?

UA planetary scientists Tamara Goldin and Jay Melosh have an article published in the latest issue of GSA's Geology that models ejecta re-entering the atmosphere from the Chicxulub impact that may have killed the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous.

They conclude that the heat from the ejecta being heated up again was about equal to that of an oven set to broil for several minutes according to a summary at Physorg.com.

Tamara and Jay were examining the idea that the ejecta would have been hot enough to start wildfires and wipe out animals worldwide.

Instead, the model indicates the pulse may not have ignited the forests but was hot enough to kill lots of plants and animals.


Ref: Self-shielding of thermal radiation by Chicxulub impact ejecta: Firestorm or fizzle?Tamara J. Goldin and H. Jay Melosh, Lunar and Planetary Lab, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA. Pages 1135-1138.

EPA may impose financial requirements on hardrock mining industry

EPA is considering imposing new financial requirements on hard rock mining in response to historical mining activities that created Superfund sites.

EPA and the National Mining Association squared off on the proposal in a forum at the recent Northwest Miner's Association meeting, according to a review on Mineweb.com.

They quote Patty McGrath, EPA regional mining coordinator, as saying that "there are many examples where mine operators have failed to make adequate financial provisions for closure costs and this has resulted in the abandonment of sites in unsafe and unacceptable environmental conditions. In these cases, state and federal agencies bear the financial burden of cleaning up the site."

Hard rock mining would be the first industry targeted by EPA. National Mining Associate General Counsel Tammy Bridgeford argued that EPA's plan is based on old occurrences that took place prior to modern mining, reclamation, and environmental regulations and procedures. NMA says increased state and federal financial responsibility requirements are adequate and that EPA's plan is unnecessary and harmful.

EPA said they are evaluating requirements of BLM, the U.S. Forest Service, and state agencies before taking action.