Mineral Resources of Kansas
Stephanie Trump

www.emporia.edu/earthsci/amber/go336/trump/KansasMinerals.htm


This webpage project was created for a mineralogy course, www.emporia.edu/earthsci/amber/go336, at Emporia State University, www.emporia.edu. The assignment was to learn webpage creation and present some knowledge of minerals gained from the course.

A summary of mineral resources of Kansas follows and to see another website I created on malachite and beryl visit www.emporia.edu/earthsci/amber/go336/trump.

Table of Contents
  • References
  • Related Links

    • Introduction

    A mineral is defined by the textbook as a naturally occurring chemical compound with a regular crystal structure (Wenk and Bulakh, 2004). A crystal is a homogeneous compound with the atoms arranged in a regular periodic pattern (Wenk and Bulakh, 2004). The arrangement of the atoms into crystals had been speculated about for a while, but was only shown to be true in 1912 when Max von Laue irradiated crystals with X-rays and observed the diffraction (Wenk and Bulakh, 2004).

    The term mineral comes from the Latin mina, meaning mine, and crystal comes from the Greek word, crystallos, meaning ice. This name was used for quartz, which the Greeks thought was water that had become ice at very high pressure deep inside the earth. The study of minerals and crystals is called mineralogy, which is a very old branch of science. Ancient Greeks and Romans wrote books on the subject. The first known book on minerals was written about 300 BC by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus (Wenk and Bulakh, 2004). Mineralogy is a subfield of the geosciences that includes crystallography and mineral genesis, and well as the physical, chemical, and optical properties of naturally occurring, crystalline solids (S. Aber, pers. comm. 8/2007).

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    • Minerals of Kansas

    Minerals and natural resources are found and extracted in Kansas adding to the economic wealth of the state. I will provide a report on four of the more important mineral resources in present and past times.

    Halite
    The chemical formula of halite is NaCl, and it has a low hardness of 2-2.5. Halite is commonly referred to as "salt." The name comes from the Greek word hals, meaning salt. Salt has been used as a seasoning and food preserver for millenia. It is mined from the ground, crushed and placed on roads in the wintertime to help with the melting of the snow and ice.

    Halite is mined in central Kansas and first discovered in Kansas in 1887 while looking for oil and gas. The commercially mined salt is from the Hutchinson Salt Member of the Wellington Formation.

    There are two different methods for underground salt mining. These methods are solution mining and room and pillar mining. Solution mining is done by injecting water into the ground. The salt becomes dissolved in the water and pumped back out. The water is allowed to evaporate and then the salt is collected that way. In room and pillar mining, miners dig down into the earth. Sections of the mineral that are to be mined (in this case salt) are removed creating rooms, while equal amounts are left untouched, providing stability. The result is a checkerboard pattern.

    Currently in Kansas, there are five mines that practice solution mining and three that practice the room and pillar mining. The three that three mines that practice room and pillar mining are: the Hutchinson Salt Company, Lyons Salt Company, and Independent Salt Company.


    Halite with a penny for scale.
    Specimen collected in Ellis County, Kansas.
    Photo by Stephanie Trump 9/2007.
    Example of mining machine for room and pillar
    mining in the Hutchinson Carey Salt Mine.
    Photo by Nancy Rice 10/07.

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    • Gypsum
    Gypsum's chemical formula is CaSO42H2O and it has a low hardness of 1.5-2. The name comes from the Greek word gypsos, meaning plaster, which is one of end products for gypsum. Gypsum is mined by using both open pit and underground mining. There are two gypsum mines in Kansas, the National Gypsum Company, and the Georgia Pacific Gypsum Corporation. The Georgia Pacific Gypsum Corporation mine is located in Marshall County. The gypsum they mine are gypsum beds in the Easly Creek Shale Formation, which is part of the Council Grove Group. The National Gypsum Company mostly uses surface mining. They mine the Medicine Lodge Gypsum Member of the Blaine Formation, which is part of the Nippewalla Group in Barber County.
    Selenite, the colorless variety of gypsum.
    Specimen collected near Lake Kannopolis,
    Ellis County, Kansas. Penny for scale.
    Photo by Stephanie Trump 9/07.

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    • Minerals of the Tri-State Mining District

    The Tri-State Mining District includes southwestern Missouri, southeastern Kansas, and northeastern Oklahoma. Lead and zinc was mined in this area from the middle of the 19th century until 1970, when the last mine closed down. Lead and zinc deposits in Kansas located in the Ozark Plateau in Cherokee County. This plateau is 55 square miles in area. The rocks of the Ozark Plateau are Mississippian in age. During the height of production, the Tri-State mining area produced 50% of zinc and 10% of the lead in the United States.

    Sphalerite
    Sphalerite's chemical formula is ZnS. It has a hardness of 3 1/2. The name comes from the Greek word sphaleros, meaning treacherous. It was called this because it is very similar to other metals, and can easily be confused with other metals. It is primarily used as a source for zinc and was first found in Kansas in 1870 near Galena, Kansas. Although there was more sphalerite than galena in the tri-state mining area, more galena was mined because it could be easily smelted in homemade furnaces. This changed in the 1870's when railroads lines were completed and a coal-fired zinc smelting plant was built near Wier City, Kansas.


    Sphalerite with penny for scale. Specimen was
    collected in Cherokee County, Kansas.
    Photo by Stephanie Trump 9/07.
    Galena with penny for scale.
    Photo taken by Stephanie Trump 9/07.

    Galena
    Galena is a mineral with a hardness of 2.5 and has a chemical formula of PbS. It is as a lead ore. The name galena is from Latin and refers to lead ore. Lead is mined both underground using the room and pillar method and also above ground using strip mining. Lead is used for solder and in car batteries.

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    • References

    Related Links
    Tri-State Lead-Zinc Ore
    web.umr.edu/~rhagni/tristate.html     		National Gypsum Company in Medicine Lodge
    www.cyberlodg.com/mlcity/industry.html
    Salt Institute
    www.saltinstitute.org     		Hutchinson Underground Salt Museum
    www.undergroundmuseum.org

    Webpage created November 2007; latest update December 3, 2007. For more information email strump@emporia.edu.

    Return to GO336 Student Webpages, www.emporia.edu/earthsci/amber/go336/webpages.htm.