EARTH MAPPING RESOURCES INITIATIVE: MINE WASTE INVENTORY FOR CRITICAL MINERAL POTENTIAL IN VIRGINIA

The Virginia Department of Energy’s Geology and Mineral Resources Program is investigating mine waste potential for critical mineral resources as part of a grant funded by the USGS Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI). Thousands of historic and modern mineral mining sites exist in Virginia. Many of these sites targeted commodities now considered critical minerals. We are conducting a detailed review of the mining history and production of targeted sites in order to compile a mine waste inventory for the Commonwealth.

Through the years, the Virginia Department of Energy has participated in multiple USGS programs to map and preserve mineral resource data, extracting information from historic exploration and mining records, and identifying potential critical mineral associations. As a result, we have made both published and unpublished mineral resource and mining data available to the public via our physical and digital collections, databases, as well as our online interactive GIS Maps. To develop a mine waste inventory, we are selecting and outlining mine sites that overlap areas of critical mineral resource potential. Of those locations, imagery and high resolution (1-meter) LiDAR data are utilized to target sites with waste/spoil piles with a total aerial extent exceeding 2,000m². A detailed review of the production records will result in populating attribute data for the mine waste features in an ArcGIS geodatabase using a predefined USMIN template. These data include geological background, mineral system and deposit type, historic exploration and mining data, and references.

The Virginia mine waste inventory will inform future land management, planning, and remediation decisions in Virginia by identifying nonfuel mine waste sites that may contain critical mineral resources. The inventory will have significant value to Virginia residents, the minerals industry, scientific researchers, and the general public. It will also guide future field-based mine site characterization and mapping efforts for mineral resources.