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Geology Professors Receive Prestigious Grant

James Saunders and Bill Hames of the College of Sciences and Mathematics Geology and Geography Department were recently awarded a prestigious grant by the U.S. Geological Survey Mineral Resources External Research Program. 

The MRP offered grants to universities, state agencies, industry, and other private sector organizations with the ability to conduct research in topics designed to support current information on the occurrence, quality and availability of mineral resources.  Saunders’ and Hames’ proposal was one of six chosen from 16 submissions.

“Metal prices are way up. We don’t produce metals the way we used to in the United States, so the USGS created this new program to stimulate research in mineral deposits,” Saunders said.

Saunders and Hames will be studying the timing and origin of rich gold and silver deposits that formed in association with volcanoes and faults in the Northern Great Basin, Nevada. These deposits contain some of the highest grade gold ores ever mined, and are important factors in making the U.S. the second-largest gold-producing country in the world.  Saunders and Hames wish to evaluate whether these ores may have formed in response to the mantle magma plume that is also responsible for the currently active Yellowstone “hotspot” volcanism.

Saunders and Hames will travel to Nevada to collect samples with AU undergraduate student Derrik Unger.  Fluid inclusions in minerals of these samples will be studied in Saunders’ laboratory to determine their chemistry and trapping conditions.  The ages of gold mineralization will be determined in the laser 40Ar/39Ar geochronology facility constructed by Hames.  As many of these samples are relatively young, geologically speaking, they will constitute an excellent test of the capabilities for the new AU geochronology lab.