Silver City Quadrangle NURE HSSR Study

OFR 97-492: Silver City Quadrangle NURE HSSR Study

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National Geochemical Database—Reformatted Data from the National Uranium Resource Evaluation (NURE) Hydrogeochemical and Stream Sediment Reconnaissance (HSSR) Program

By Steven M. Smith
Version 1.40 (2006)

This page is currently being rewritten to the Version 1.41 format.

Brief History and Description of Data

[See History of NURE HSSR Program for a summary of the entire program.]

In 1976, three private subcontractors, under contract with the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL), collected water and stream sediments samples from the New Mexico portions of the Douglas, Silver City, Clifton, and St. Johns quadrangles. All of the samples were sent to LASL for uranium analyses and the data for all 4 quadrangles were released in the NURE Hydrogeochemical and Stream Sediment Reconnaissance (HSSR) GJBX-69(78) report. Of those reported, 755 sediment and 474 water samples were collected within the Silver City quadrangle.

In 1977, the entire NURE HSSR program changed from a study area basis (State, County, or geomorphic provinces) to a 1° x 2° quadrangle basis. As a result of this decision, the responsibility for the Arizona portion of the Silver City quadrangle was reassigned to the LASL. According to the last LASL NURE progress report [GJBX-5(80)], this area was scheduled to be sampled during 1980. Apparently though, no samples for this Arizona area were subsequently collected or analyzed by LASL before the NURE program ended.

Out of the samples collected in 1976, LASL sent 736 sediment and 405 water samples from the New Mexico portion of the Silver City quadrangle to the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant (ORGDP) for multielement analyses. These data were released by ORGDP as the Silver City Quadrangle NURE Hydrogeochemical and Stream Sediment Reconnaissance (HSSR) study GJBX-320(81) report.

The following is a list of NURE sample types collected for all studies within the Silver City quadrangle study.

*Summary of Silver City quadrangle sample types.*
Sediment Sample Type	Number of Samples	Water Sample Type	Number of Samples
Wet Streams	44	Streams	51
Dry Streams	583	Wells	345
Wet Springs	19	Springs	21
Wet Natural Ponds	5	Artificial Ponds	57
Wet Artificial Ponds	48
Dry Artificial Ponds	56
Total Sediments	755	Total Waters	474

These Silver City quadrangle samples were analyzed by one or more of the following methods:

Sediment Samples

LA1: Los Alamos Delayed-Neutron Counting Analysis of sediments for U.
OR7: Oak Ridge Emission Spectrochemical Analysis of sediments for Ag, Al, B, Ba, Be, Ca, Ce, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hf, K, La, Li, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, Nb, Ni, P, Pb, Sc, Sr, Th, Ti, V, Y, Zn, and Zr.

Water Samples

LA6-DN: Los Alamos Delayed-Neutron Counting Analysis of waters for U.
LA6-FL: Los Alamos Fluorometry Analysis of waters for U.
OR13: Oak Ridge Emission Spectrochemical Analysis of waters for Ag, Al, B, Ba, Be, Ca, Ce, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Li, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, Ni, P, Sc, Si, Sr, Ti, V, Y, Zn, and Zr. (Note: Nb and Th may be included in this method.)

Composition of the NEW-FORMAT NURE Data Files

The data in the NEW-FORMAT NURE data files consist of records from the early New Mexico GJBX-69(78) report combined with records from the ORGDP multielement GJBX-320(81) report. Each sample is represented by a single composite record. Any problems found during the reformatting process are noted in the REFORMAT comment field.

Download The Data

The NURE HSSR data are now available online in two databases: The sediment database (also includes data for soils and some rocks) at http://tin.er.usgs.gov/nure/sediment/ and the water database at http://tin.er.usgs.gov/nure/water/. From these two websites, NURE HSSR data can be selected, examined, summarized, and downloaded by political boundaries (State and County), by quadrangle (1:250,000-scale, 1:100,000-scale, and 1:63,360-scale for Alaska or 1:24,000-scale for the Lower 48 States), and by hydrologic unit (drainage region, subregion, river basin, or sub-basin). Selected data can be downloaded as a dBase file, a shapefile, an HTML table, or ASCII text (tab- or comma-delimited).

Silver City Quadrangle Sediment Data - 755 records
Silver City Quadrangle Water Data - 474 records

Notes for Data Users

None at this time.

Other NURE Geochemical Data for the Silver City Quadrangle

A summary evaluation report was prepared for the Silver City quadrangle by The Bendix Field Engineering Corporation of Grand Junction, Colorado [PGJ/F-131(82)]. As a part of the evaluation process, an additional 250 rock samples and one water sample were collected from selected parts of the Silver City quadrangle. The samples were analyzed and the multielement analytical data were released as microfiche appendices accompanying the summary report.

Silver City Quadrangle NURE Bibliography

Morris, W.A., Bunker, M.E., Waterbury, G.R., and Waller, R.A., 1979, Hydrogeochemical and stream sediment reconnaissance of the National Uranium Resource Evaluation Program; Semiannual progress report April-September 1979; Primarily for the Rocky Mountain states of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana and the state of Alaska: U.S. Department of Energy, Grand Junction, Colo., GJBX-5(80), 11 p.
O'Neill, A.J., and Thede, D.S., 1982, National Uranium Resource Evaluation, Silver City quadrangle, New Mexico and Arizona: Bendix Field Engineering Corporation, U.S. Department of Energy, Grand Junction, Colo., PGJ/F-131(82), 87 p.
Sharp, R.R., Morris, W.A., and Aamodt, P.L., 1978, Uranium hydrogeochemical and stream sediment reconnaissance data release for the New Mexico portions of the Douglas, Silver City, Clifton, and Saint Johns NTMS quadrangles, New Mexico/Arizona: Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory informal report LA-7180-MS, Los Alamos, N.M., U.S. Department of Energy, Grand Junction, Colo., GJBX-69(78), 123 p.
Uranium Resource Evaluation Project, 1981, Hydrogeochemical and stream sediment reconnaissance basic data for Silver City quadrangle, New Mexico; Arizona: Union Carbide Corporation, Nuclear Division, Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, Oak Ridge, Tenn., K/UR-345, U.S. Department of Energy, Grand Junction, Colo., GJBX-320(81), 117 p.

Links Within Open-File Report 97-492

Back to New Mexico NURE data
Back to Arizona NURE data
Frequently Asked Questions Concerning NURE HSSR Data
Home Page: USGS National Geochemical Database - NURE HSSR data

Page written by Steven M. Smith (smsmith@usgs.gov)
Version 1.10: July 29, 1999
Version 1.20: August 07, 2000
Version 1.30: September 11, 2001
Version 1.40: January 13, 2006

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U.S. Department of the Interior \| U.S. Geological Survey URL: https://pubsdata.usgs.gov/pubs/of/1997/ofr-97-0492/quad/q_silvrc.htm Questions or Assistance: USGS Web Contact Page Last Modified: Wed Dec 7 16:15 EDT 2016

National Geochemical Database—Reformatted Data from the National Uranium Resource Evaluation (NURE) Hydrogeochemical and Stream Sediment Reconnaissance (HSSR) Program By Steven M. Smith Version 1.40 (2006)