Presented at the Wyoming Geological Association meeting in 2014, this presentation covers in a broad sense what Wyoming has energy, industrial, and aesthetic minerals. It covers what these are, how much Wyoming produces and where.

1. What does Wyoming have and what are we going to do
with it?
Overview of the mineral resources of
Wyoming

2.  Information contained
within this talk was
collected predominantly
through the US Energy
Information
Administration
 I do not guarantee the
validity of these values
and are presented as an
informative basis only
DISCLAIMER

3.  Energy Minerals
◦ Coal, oil, natural gas, and uranium
 Industrial Minerals
◦ Trona, bentonite, limestone, copper, iron ore,
diamonds, silica sands, anorthosite
 Aesthetic Minerals
◦ Nephrite, rubies, sapphires, peridot, garnet
Abundance of Natural Resources

4. Part One: Energy Minerals

5.  2010 Wyoming
produced 442.5 million
short tons of coal
◦ 41% of total US production
◦ Same as next 7 states
combined
◦ Subbituminous Coals
◦ Low energy content, long
transport distances- some
limits
Energy Minerals: Coal
U.S. Energy Information Administration

6.  Black Thunder: 116.2
million short tons
 North Antelope
Rochelle: 105.8 million
short tons
Energy Minerals : Coal

7.  Mercury and Air Toxics
Standards (MATS)- 2014
◦ Reduction 5,340 MW
◦ 5.4 gigawatts
 Switch to Natural Gas
Energy Minerals : Coal

8.  Wyoming #5 in natural
gas production
 Increased production in
local reservoirs
 70.8 BCF in 2013
 72.5 BCF in 2014
Energy Minerals : Natural Gas

9.  Natural gas seen as
green alternative
 Filling the gap left by
coal regulations
 Infrastructure in place
 Local needs
Energy Minerals : Natural Gas

10.  Production in the
Niobrara increased from
around 146,000 barrels in
2008 to almost 3 million
last year (2013)
 Wyoming’s ability to
produce oil currently
exceeds the state’s
ability to ship it to
refineries across the
country
Energy Minerals : Oil

11.  Wyoming is U.S. leader in
uranium production
 2013: 2.8 million pounds
 Reserves 106 million
pounds at $30.00
 350 million pounds at
$50.00
 Approx. 1 pound
uranium = 20,000 pounds
coal
Energy Minerals: Uranium

12. Abundance of Natural Resources

13. Part 2: Industrial Minerals

14.  22 occurrences of
diamondiferous kimberlite
and related host rocks
 Several unrelated placer
diamonds
 Stateline district -1975,
>130,000 diamonds
 Lack of access to
kimberlites
 last 20 years, WSG
identified 100s of
concentrations of
kimberlite indicator
minerals
Industrial Minerals: Diamonds

15. Industrial Minerals: Diamonds

16.  Processed into baking
soda or soda ash
 Wyoming has worlds
largest deposit
 Supplies the US with 90%
of its soda ash
 Soda ash is used in glass
making
 Wyoming reserves will
last over 2,000 years
Industrial Minerals: Trona

17.  Wyoming has 70% of the
Worlds supply of
bentonite
 4.1 million tons produced
in 2013
 Used in absorbents,
animal feed, drilling
fluids, foundry, iron ore
pelletizing, sealants,
crayons, medication,
and cosmetics
Industrial Minerals: Bentonite

18.  1899-1908 Encampment
district 24 million pounds
 1882: Hartville in Goshen
County
 Absaroka Mountains
west of Yellowstone
 Lake Alice in the
overthrust belt
 Ferris Haggarty in the
Sierra Madre
Industrial Minerals: Copper

19.  Copper King
 Est. 695,800 oz. gold
 188.60 million lbs. of
copper
Industrial Minerals: Copper / Gold

20.  Sunrise, Wyoming
 Colorado Fuel and Iron hoped
to make Sunrise a model
company town. In the early
1900s company-owned houses,
boarding houses, depots, a
school, churches, shops, and
other structures were built
 Decreasing ore quality and
problems in the domestic steel
market, the town and mine
were closed by Colorado Fuel
and Iron in 1980
 lifetime of the mine 40 million
tons of iron ore were produced
Industrial Minerals: Iron Ore

21.  Aluminum can be
extracted from
anorthosite
 32,000 tons of
anorthosite was mined in
from Laramie Range,
Albany County, average
analysis of this material
was 28% Al2O3
Industrial Minerals: Anorthosite

22.  Wyoming Jade is
considered to be some of
the finest nephrite in the
world
 Varies from translucent to
opaque, and ranges in
color from off-white (rare)
to apple green, emerald
green, leaf green, olive
green, black, and green
and white “snowflake
jade”
Aesthetic Minerals – Nephrite Jade

23.  Nephrite – Amphibole
 Product of
metasomatism and
alteration, occurs as
sheets, lenses, and
nodules along or near
contacts between
dissimilar rock types in
strongly metamorphosed
zones
Aesthetic Minerals – Nephrite Jade

24.  Abundant mica schists
or rare lamprophyres
 Metamorphic rocks rich
in mica
 Vermiculite Deposits of
Wyoming, visiting each
site, discovered ruby in
about 30% of these
deposits
Aesthetic Minerals – Ruby and Sapphire

25. Aesthetic Minerals – Ruby and Sapphire

26.  Agate, jasper; common opal,
fire opal, precious opal, onyx,
gold nuggets, platinum
nuggets, palladium nuggets,
pyrope garnet, spessartine
garnet, chrome diopside,
enstatite, kyanite, iolite, ruby,
sapphire, peridot, diamond,
specularite, apatite, minyulite,
amethyst, aquamarine, jade,
almandine, chalcedony,
silicified banded iron formation,
jasperoid, labradorite,
grunerite, amber, chrysocolla,
heliodor, varisite, specularite &
others.
Aesthetic Minerals : more…

27.  Wyoming
◦ First in coal, uranium, trona
◦ 70% of worlds bentonite
◦ Fifth in natural gas
Wyoming supplies more energy
to the nation than any other state
Conclusions

28. QUESTIONS?