Idaho City

Tired. :) Good times though! Hiking, frisbee golf, camping, service project, and some learnin'!

Today's blog subject is to discuss something learned over the past day or so that I can use in my classroom. Learned some good information about different types of gold mining, and the resulting acid mine drainage pollution. Turns out, the pollution isn't due to chemicals used in the mining process, but rather the natural acidification and concentration of heavy metals as rain and groundwater move through rock. Mining simply breaks up the rock, creating exponentially more surface area for this natural process, putting exponentially more acid and heavy metals in our streams and groundwater. Should help me improve my own unit on mining back at school.

I also found it fascinating that we were finding river cobbles way up on the slopes surrounding our campsite, almost up to the ridge line. They were displaced due to all of the hydraulic mining that went on in the area, all piled up in weird hummocky piles everywhere, but I still wonder over the processes that got all that rounded rock up so high in the first place. I'm guessing that millennia ago, when the Treasure Valley was one giant lake, Lake Bonneville, that the tributary streams and rivers were much higher in altitude also. Maybe. Could also simply be uplift. I know just enough geology to make me dangerous . . . .