Geochemistry in Mineral Exploration

Mineral resources of the Mill Creek, Mountain Lake, and Peters Mountain Wilderness Study Areas, Craig and Giles Counties, Virginia, and Monroe County, West Virginia, with a section on oil and gas potential

“…Similar geochemical surveys based on trace-element analyses have been credited with the discovery of many types of mineral deposits (Hawkes and Webb, 1962). No metallic mineral deposits other than iron and manganese are known in the sequence of rocks exposed in the three study areas, and no evidence of any other deposit was found in the geochemical studies, which included analyses of stream-sediment, rock, and soil samples.…”

Uptake of Naturally Occurring Radioisotopes by Vegetation in a Region of High Radioactivity

“…The plant portion sampled was as suggested by Hawkes and Webb (1962). For perennials, shrubs and trees, the new year's growth was sampled, on the assumption that the radionuclide content of fresh growth will more closely reflect the uptake of the radioisotopes from the soil during the season, and will not include radioisotopes from previous growing seasons.…”

The use of bed sediments in water quality studies and monitoring programs

“…The former are used to determine "dissolved" constituents whereas the latter are used to determine suspended sediment concentrations (SSCs)/grain-size distributions, and sedimentassociated chemical constituents by subtraction. Although bed sediments have been used in large-scale (e.g., national) environmental surveys, as well as for geochemical reconnaissance (e.g., mineral exploration), they rarely are used in traditional water quality-monitoring programs (e.g., Hawkes and Webb, 1962;Webb et al, 1978;Fauth et al, 1985;Otteson et al, 2000;Gustavsson et al, 2001). However, of all the potential sample media, bed sediments probably are the easiest to collect and process, and are least likely to suffer from contamination or insufficient sample mass/analytical detection issues.…”

“…Hence, their lack of use is somewhat surprising, but results from several factors. First, since the publication of the Hawkes and Webb (1962) treatise on geochemical exploration, as well as the publication of several national geochemical/environmental atlases (e.g., Webb et al, 1978;Fauth et al, 1985;Otteson et al, 2000), bed sediments have been used to detect geochemical/environmental spatial differences, but rarely are viewed as sensitive to short-term (geo)chemical variations; whereas the latter are the usual goal of most monitoring programs. Second, bed sediment surveys typically employ grain-size limited aliquots (e.g., < 180 µm) to facilitate spatial comparisons.…”