GIS II Post 1: An Overview of Frac Sand Mining

Overview of Sand Mining in Wisconsin

Possibly a common misconception, but sand mining has been taking place within Wisconsin's boarders for hundreds of years. It has not been until a recent uptick in hydrofracking that the heightened interest of the public has been involved. Because there aren't any oil or gas wells in Wisconsin, the people of Wisconsin's interest is mainly on the sand mines.

What is Sand Frac Mining? Where is it in WI?

In January of 2012 the WI DNR created a map showing the locations of frac sand mines. As figure 1 illustrates, most of the mines are located in west central Wisconsin, with clusters of mines in Chippewa, Monroe, and Trempealeau counties. Although there are some sites that use a special hydraulic dredging technique, dry mining is much more common. So most mines look for the ideal sand to be closest to the surface, such as the Jordan and Wonewoc formations.



Map created by the WI DNR. http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/mines/silica.html 

What Are Some of the Issues Associated with Sand Frac Mining in Western Wisconsin? 

• Destruction of once/future wildlife habitat (hunting is a large part of Wisconsin culture)

• Impact on roads from Transportation.
• Primarily use trucks to railroads.
• One operation is trucking sand to Minnesota where it is being processed, then loaded onto barges and transported downstream on the Mississippi.

• Sometimes sand-bearing geological formations are tightly cemented and need to be 'blasted' to make sand accessible.
• Noisy
• Vibration
• Dust emissions
• May happen as frequently as every day or only once very few months.
• Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) rules require the use of water injection when drilling the blasting holes in order to control drilling dust.
• Blasted materials need to be "crushed," to reduce size of particles.

Overview of how GIS will be used to further explore some of the issues as part of a class project.

From the various websites we have downloaded a wealth of data which will be used to create specific sand mine site criteria. Such as slope grades, sand type, distance from rail road terminals, etc. Using a vast host of tools all these models could be used to help government bodies issue permits or sand companies in deciding where to locate their next mine.

References Cited

Information and figures taken from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources's Silica (frac) sand mining page and the corresponding pdf.

"Silica (frac) sand mining." Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. January 2012. Accessed: 1 November 2013. http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/mines/silica.html

"Silica Sand Mining in Wisconsin." Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. January 2012. Accessed: 1 November 2013. http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/Mines/documents/SilicaSandMiningFinal.pdf

"What is Frac Sand?" Geology.com. 2011. Accessed: 8 December 2013. http://geology.com/articles/frac-sand/