| Director: |
Maria Mastalerz |
| Other Researchers: |
Valerie Beckham-Feller,
Ashley Douds,
LaBraun Hampton,
Nancy Hasenmueller,
Jennifer Lanman,
Bei Liu,
Garrett Marietta,
Katherine Tucker Patrick McLaughlin
|
| Funding: |
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) - - USGS - No Specific Program
|
| Issue: |
Critical minerals have received much emphasis in the US because of their costly imports from other countries. Over last several years, IGWS researchers have studied critical minerals in several formation in Indiana. Upper Devonian organic-rich black shales of the New Albany Shale in the Illinois Basin have long been known to be enriched in metals, and high concentrations of Ni, V, and Zn have received a lot of attention. The New Albany Shale in Indiana’s part of the Illinois basin includes a thick, close to 300’-ft sequence that contains metal enrichments. Although researchers of the Indiana Geological and Water Survey (IGWS) were involved in a USGS-sponsored recent Earth MRI project on Devonian sediments, the project concentrated only on REE phosphorites and was restricted to the uppermost organic-matter-lean part of the New Albany Shale section. However, no systematic studies have been carried out to understand distribution of critical minerals within the New Albany Shale section regionally or stratigraphically. |
| Objective: |
The overall objective of this study is to collect new geochemical data on critical mineral (CM) concentrations of Devonian black shales. Understanding spatial and stratigraphic variations in CM will help evaluate these rocks as potential sources of various metals. These data also will help to better understand the ore mineralizing system models by documenting geochemical gradients, sedimentology, and characteristics of black shale-enclosing strata. |
| Approach: |
The IGWS team will be responsible for Indiana’s part of the Illinois Basin. Specifically, we will be involved in two tasks: 1) collecting samples from outcrops and cores archived at the IGWS; and 2) analyzing samples and interpreting data from Indiana’s part of the basin. We also will actively collaborate with other states (Illinois, Kentucky, and Iowa) on sampling protocols and sample documentation during the duration of the project and on data compilation and interpretation in the final stages of the project.
The project will begin with identifying the most suitable cores intersecting the New Albany Shale. We recently have obtained from the industry two relatively fresh cores (Guenter and Enterprise) from Posey County, Indiana, that cut the entire thickness of the new Albany Shale, and these cores will be our initial sampling target. Many other cores are available from the IGWS archives that will be sampled as well. We plan to concentrate on sampling in the early 2024 and continue this work into 2025. After selecting the most suitable cores for the project and before sampling, we will photograph and analyze the cores by pXRF and these data will be used to screen the rock material; intervals of increased CM concentrations will be subsequently sampled and sent to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) for detailed analysis. Splits of all samples will be retained at the IGWS for in-house analysis including but not limited to carbon sulfur and vitrinite reflectance. |
| Products: |
These newly obtained data will be added to the existing database of the New Albany Shale properties and will be summarized in the final report and the resultant publications. |
| Benefits: |
Discovery of potential new sources of critical minerals is very important not only for Indiana but for the US in general. There is a large demand for them in modern technologies, and the majority of these elements are imported from China. |
