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Environmental Behavior of Mineral Deposits

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee

This study has focused on the environmental signatures of the abandoned Fontana and Hazel Creek mines and the associated rocks of the regionally extensive, pyritic Anakeesta Formation, which is a natural acid producer. A key aspect of the work around the mines is to assist the National Park Service in evaluating their remediation options at the sites, as well as to understand the effects of rock drainage on the surrounding ecosystem.

Project work will:

• Determine the mineralogical and geochemical controls on drainage chemistry, especially from the regionally extensive black, pyritic shales of the Anakeesta Formation. This will include quantitative modeling of water chemistry to determine mineralogical controls on heavy-metal solubility and major-element water chemistry.
• Delineate correlations with fish mortality.

Fontana Mine underground. John Jackson points to stalactites growing from ceiling.

Products

Flohr, M.J.K., and Hammarstrom, J.M., 1997,

Formation of gossan and oxidation of sulfide ores as analogs of oxidation of tailings piles [abs.]: in, Wanty, R.B., Marsh, S.P., and Gough, L.P., eds., 4th International Symposium on Environmental Geochemistry Proceedings: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report OF97-496, p. 24

Schultz, A.P., Southworth, C.S., Chirico, P.G., Seal, R.R., II, Langdon, K.R., and Fontanez, W., 1999,

New geologic maps of Great Smoky Mountains National Park [abs.]: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs (SE), v. 31.

Schultz, A.P., and Seal, R.R., II, 1997,

Geology and geologic history of Great Smoky Mountains National Park: a simple guide for the interpretive program: U.S. Geological Survey Open-file Report 97-510, 5 p.

Seal, R.R., II, Hammarstrom, J.M., Southworth, C.S., Meier, A.L., Haffner, D.P., Schultz, A.P., Plumlee, G.S., Flohr, M.J.K., Jackson, J.C., Smith, S.M., and Hageman, P.L. , 1998,

Preliminary report on water quality associated with the abandoned Fontana and Hazel Creek mines, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 98-476, 50 p.

Seal, R.R., II, Hammarstrom, J.M., Southworth, C.S., Schultz, A.P., and Meier, A.L., 1997,

Geochemistry of acidic drainage in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Implications for the Southern Appalachians [abs]: Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Southern Appalachians Man and The Biosphere Conference, p. 55

Seal, R.R., II, Schultz, A.P., Haffner, D.P., and Meier, A.L., 1999,

Water Quality and Inorganic Chemistry of Icewater Spring and Mount Le Conte Spring, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee and North Carolina: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 99-375, 9 p.

Collaborators

Collaborators include Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Geologic Resources Division of the National Park Service.