16: New perspectives on a 140-year legacy of mining and abandoned mine cleanup in the San Juan Mountains, Colorado
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Published:September 07, 2016
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CiteCitation
Douglas B. Yager, David L. Fey, Thomas P. Chapin, Raymond H. Johnson, 2016. "New perspectives on a 140-year legacy of mining and abandoned mine cleanup in the San Juan Mountains, Colorado", Unfolding the Geology of the West, Stephen M. Keller, Matthew L. Morgan
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Abstract
The Gold King mine water release that occurred on 5 August 2015 near the historical mining community of Silverton, Colorado, highlights the environmental legacy that abandoned mines have on the environment. During reclamation efforts, a breach of collapsed workings at the Gold King mine sent 3 million gallons of acidic and metal-rich mine water into the upper Animas River, a tributary to the Colorado River basin. The Gold King mine is located in the scenic, western San Juan Mountains, a region renowned for its volcano-tectonic and gold-silver-base metal mineralization history. Prior to mining, acidic drainage from hydrothermally altered areas...
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Contents
Unfolding the Geology of the West

Prepared in conjunction with the 2016 GSA Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado, this volume contains sixteen guides to field trips in this rich geologic region. The four “Great Surveys” of the late 1800s ventured west to explore and document the region’s unknown natural resources and collect valuable geologic information. Many of the field guides in this volume, aptly titled Unfolding the Geology of the West, will cover the same hallowed ground as the early geologic expeditions. Organized into four sections, this volume spans some of the major subdisciplines of geology: (1) stratigraphy, sedimentology, and paleontology; (2) structure and metamorphism; (3) Quaternary landscape evolution; and (4) engineering and environmental geology.