129-17 Assessing Critical Mineral Enrichment in Coal Waste Piles in Southeast Kansas

Abstract:

Between 1869 and 2016, Kansas produced 300 million tons of coal in Southeastern Kansas through underground and surface strip mining. Today, critical mineral mining is resurging in importance to facilitate the transition to renewable energy technologies and combat geopolitical competition. Developing domestic mining practices allows the United States to have a secure supply chain, reduce dependence on foreign suppliers, and avoid production bottlenecks. Recently, there has been renewed interest in the potential for mining in our region. A recent Department of Energy grant awarded to the Kansas Geological Survey (KGS) in 2022 focused on identifying areas of critical mineral enrichment within the remaining coal seams that stretch across multiple states. The second phase of this research at the KGS is to assess critical mineral enrichment in the gob piles that remain in the region. Gob piles are piles of accumulated waste - in this case, they are the accumulations of coal waste that were left behind.  

A total of three trenches and three augers were collected at two gob piles within the Mined Land Wildlife Areas in southeastern Kansas. Our research is utilizing a portable XRF (X-ray fluorescence) to measure the geochemical composition of gob pile samples. XRF is an analytical technique used to determine the elemental composition of materials. X-ray energy causes electrons to transfer in and out of inner shell levels, which creates a response X-ray with a corresponding intensity peak. These intensity peaks are shown in a spectrum, which is a graphical representation of X-ray intensity peaks as a function of energy peaks. The peak energy identifies the element, and the peak height/intensity is generally indicative of its concentration.  

This poster will present preliminary results of our geochemical analysis of coal waste collected within the Mined Land Wildlife Areas in southeastern Kansas. Preliminary geochemical analysis reveals potential enrichment in several critical minerals, including silica, lead, uranium, tungsten, zinc, and arsenic. The accuracy of the results collected with the pXRF will also be compared to the results of XRF collected with a new microXRF desktop analyzer that was acquired by the Kansas Geological Survey in the summer.

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