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Water-quality and discharge data from draining mine tunnels near Silverton, Colorado 1988-2015

Metadata Updated: September 12, 2025

The American Tunnel, the Black Hawk mine, the Gold King mine, the Mogul mine, and the Red and Bonita mine are located in the Cement Creek watershed, tributary to the upper Animas River near Silverton, Colorado. All five sites have tunnels that drain groundwater from abandoned underground mine workings to the surface. This draining water has elevated concentrations of metals and degrades water quality in Cement Creek. Water quality (pH, and dissolved copper, manganese, and zinc concentrations) and discharge data were compiled from multiple sources to examine changes in these parameters through time. Copper, manganese, and zinc loads calculated from these data are included in the data files. Data are reported for the American Tunnel (November 1988 through July 2015), the Black Hawk mine (September 1991 through September 2005), the Gold King mine (August 1993 through July 2015), the Mogul mine (July 1992 through July 2015), and the Red and Bonita mine (June 1997 through July 2015).

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 September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 12, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 12, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-5eab11fc82cefae35a2254cc
Data Last Modified 2020-12-15T00:00:00Z
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://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-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 91712b3d-20c4-4358-8aaf-2f76ef45534f
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -107.6485, 37.8822, -107.6356, 37.9101
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash c5673940188229739de8b1fa0470673bfbff20f34af62e2ebbf9fef75d6e41d4
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -107.6485, 37.8822, -107.6485, 37.9101, -107.6356, 37.9101, -107.6356, 37.8822, -107.6485, 37.8822}

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