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Geochemical Analyses of Water, Mine Tailings, Fluvial Suspended Sediments, Fluvial Bed Sediments, and Fluvial Flood Deposit Sediments from the Big River and Meramec River Drainage Basins, Missouri

Metadata Updated: September 12, 2024

Geochemical data for aqueous, mine tailings, and sediment samples collected from the Big River and Meramec River drainage basins in southeastern Missouri are presented. The Big River drains historical lead, zinc, and barite mining districts, including the Old Lead Belt (OLB). Underground mining in the OLB resulted in large mine-waste chat piles and tailings impoundments that have released material laden with lead, zinc, and other trace elements to the Big River drainage basin. The Meramec River has also been affected by mining-related material transported by the Big River. Since the late 1980s, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has been involved in investigations into the effects of mining on the Big River. The data presented here were generated as part of collaborations between the USGS Central Midwest Water Science Center, the USGS Mineral Resources Program, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Flood deposit sediments were collected immediately after major flooding of the Big and Meramec Rivers in December 2016 and April 2017. Bed sediments and suspended sediments were collected by various methods during several field efforts from 2018 through 2022. Mine tailings were collected by coring on the former Federal mine tailings impoundment within St. Joe State Park in 2018. Concentrations of major and trace elements were determined for multiple particle size fractions of solid-phase samples, and multi-element analyses of deionized water leaches and sequential extractions were performed on select samples. Aqueous samples were collected from the Big River, tributaries, and mine and mine-waste seeps at near baseflow conditions during three different field efforts in 2018, 2019, and 2021. Aqueous samples were analyzed for anions and major and trace elements. Concentrations of major and trace elements in streambed and suspended sediments collected from the Big River drainage basin in 1988 and 1999 are also reported; these data were previously published in a USGS report but are provided here for convenient comparison.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date August 25, 2024
Metadata Updated Date September 12, 2024

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date August 25, 2024
Metadata Updated Date September 12, 2024
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
@Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/f2e889baa8aed047e298eeb04d3ad36a
Identifier USGS:65e60792d34e5855ff4e66b8
Data Last Modified 20240910
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 95468312-34a3-4a2d-92ef-9261c40d1ad9
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -90.8171,37.7599,-90.3639,38.502
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 2933283a38ee08133c4617db2d2a7fbdb74f882b7b74b1d069676ff641041a95
Source Schema Version 1.1
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