Geodatabase of the South Texas Uranium District

By

BEAMAN, MARK, and MCGEE, WILLIAM W.

Conrad Blucher Institute, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, TX

Uranium and its associated trace elements and radionuclides are ubiquitous in the South Texas Tertiary environment. Surface mining of this resource from the 1960s through the early 1980s at over eighty locations has left an extensive anthropological footprint in the lower Nueces and San Antonio river basins. Reclamation of mining initiated after 1975 has been under the regulatory authority of the Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT). Mines that were active before the Texas Surface Mining Act of 1975 was enacted, and never reclaimed, are now considered abandoned. The Abandoned Mine Land Section of the RCT is currently reclaiming these pre-law uranium mines with funding from the federal government. Work being conducted by the RCT to evaluate the effectiveness of the reclamation process includes ongoing quantitative monitoring and evaluation of the reclamation through vegetative ground cover mapping, post-reclamation radiation surveys, erosion control effectiveness and slope stability studies, and water quality testing. Presently a number of graduate and postgraduate students are completing research on the watershed and reservoir distribution of trace elements below the South Texas Uranium District. The question remains as to whether the elevated levels of uranium, its associated trace elements and radiation levels in the South Texas environment are due to mining activity or natural geological abundance. A definitive answer to such an environmental geology question can be resolved through the spatial analysis properties of a Geographic Information System (GIS). The compilation of past and present environmental monitoring data and public domain GIS into a freely available GIS database was possible through the GCAGS 2001 Student Grant Program for the proposal entitled “South Texas Uranium District: Construction of a Publicly Available Geographic Information Systems Database”. GIS data and documentation is available for download at http://snapper.cbi.tamucc.edu/umine.