Thanks for the shout-out, Michael! The general public doesn't know a lot about Trust Lands and we're hoping to change that. We do so many amazing things and we were proud to be a part of this project.
What happens when a small mineral exploration company drills a ton of core, places it in a storage shed in small town Utah, but then stops paying their storage fees? Instead of calling the TV show "Storage Wars", the storage company thankfully called the Utah Geological Survey! Before this material went to the local landfill, UGS geologists were able to rescue nearly 2500 ft of core. These cores were collected to evaluate the Blawn Mountain Alunite [KAl3(SO4)2(OH)6] deposit in the west desert of Utah. Alunite is an important potential source of aluminum and potash (K2SO4). Alunite is also commonly encountered as an alteration mineral in high sulfidation epithermal gold deposits. This material will be put to immediate use since UGS coincidentally just received a USGS EarthMRI grant to study Alunite resources in western Utah. Thanks to Andrew Rupke (UGS Industrial Minerals Geologist), Jake Alexander, PG, Skadi Kobe, Maxwell Hamilton, and Shadrach Ashton for their core rescue efforts, as well as Tyler Wiseman from Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (the owner of the resource). #utahgeology #alunite