Federal funds totaling $1.13 million have been allocated for mapping and geophysical surveys by the U.S. Geological Survey and Association of American State Geologists for critical minerals projects in Alaska.
USGS officials announced Tuesday, Sept. 29, that the funds include $634,000 for new geologic mapping and $500,000 for new geophysical surveys for fiscal year 2020 under the USGS Mineral Resources Program’s Earth Mapping Resources Initiative, or Earth MRI.
The grants are going to the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys for geologic mapping and geochemical analyses for an area of the Western Tanacross region near the Canadian border. The money will also buy USGS new airborne geophysics surveys in the Yukon-Tanana uplands.
The Alaska survey was scheduled to begin this summer, but postponed until 2021 because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, said Warren Day, USGS MRI science coordinator with the federal agency in Denver. USGS has contracted with private companies in Australia and Canada to fly the airborne magnetic and radiometric surveys to identify geological structures and help identify concealed rock types that may contain mineral resources, Day said. The surveys are expected to continue for several years.
USGS is working with individual states, who suggest specific projects and all data collected will be available to the public, he said. The USGS offices in Anchorage are located in the Alaska Department of Natural Resources facilities, he said.
These new projects in Alaska represent the next step in an ambitious effort to improve the agency’s knowledge of the geologic framework of the country and to identify areas that may have potential to contain undiscovered critical mineral resources, said Jim Reilly, director of the USGS. Identification and prioritization of prospective areas were done through our strong partnership with the state geological surveys in a series of workshops in the fall of 2019, he said.
The Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys will focus on geologic mapping for critical mineral commodities like arsenic, bismuth, cobalt, indium, the platinum group elements, rare earth elements, tantalum, tellurium, tin and tungsten, as well as copper and gold.
The goal of these geologic mapping efforts, which are managed through the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program, is to refine the nation’s scientific understanding of the geologic framework of areas of interest, USGS officials said. The maps will also support decisions about use of land, water, energy and minerals and help to mitigate the impact of geologic hazards on communities, they said.
The Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys and USGS will also conduct airborne geophysics surveys of the Yukon-Tanana Uplands with a focus on tin and tungsten, they said.
