Colorado School of Mines, USGS join forces to address geological and mineral resource questions essential to economic and national security

By Jenn Fields, Special to Mines Research

Mines and the U.S. Geological Survey have a long history of working side by side to solve the geological and mineral resource questions of the times. USGS scientists have joint and affiliate faculty appointments through Mines’ Center for Mineral Resource Science. The USGS even houses its National Earthquake Information Center in its Geologic Hazards Science Center on the Mines campus.  

This close relationship continues now in the field of critical minerals—those deemed essential to economic and national security. Some are rare, while others are relatively abundant but difficult to develop economically. Demand also shifts as technology changes: Lithium was virtually ignored before the battery boom, and rare tellurium has become a key component to some semiconductors and other electronic devices. In this dynamic landscape, research in the critical minerals lifecycle is multifaceted and multidisciplinary, running a gamut from characterization and exploration to extraction, use and recycling. 

Mines faculty and students often work with the USGS on critical minerals research projects, creating an ecosystem in which researchers share resources like lab space and draw on each other’s ideas and expertise. And Mines students—who could become the next generation of USGS scientists—can get hands-on experience and mentorship. Now, a new building going up on campus will bring this partnership under one roof, creating more collaborative opportunities to address resource and energy challenges. 

The USGS Energy and Minerals Research Facility, set to open in 2027, is designed to bring research from multiple disciplines together. The building will hold around 20 laboratories and space for around 70 Mines researchers in the mining, geophysics and geology and geological engineering departments, as well as about 200 USGS researchers in the minerals and energy divisions. Joint projects will become more seamless for Mines faculty and students who already work with the USGS. 

“People recognize there’s a synergy between critical minerals and energy and synergy between what Mines faculty and the USGS are doing,” said Terri Hogue, dean of earth and society programs at Mines. “With this building, we can have true on-site collaboration: Researchers can work together, and faculty and students will be engaged in advancing minerals and energy solutions for the country and the world.”  

For researchers in critical minerals like Mathias Burisch-Hassel, an associate professor of geology and geological engineering at Mines, working under one roof with the USGS is welcome. 

“It’s really good to have critical mass—the more the merrier,” Burisch-Hassel said. “Being in the same space enables random, unplanned interactions. Sometimes big projects can develop over coffee.” 

The space Burisch-Hassel will use in the Energy and Minerals Research Building includes an automated mineralogy lab with scanning electron microscopy, enabling characterization of mineral samples. It will also house a fluid inclusion lab, allowing for analysis of systems of interest to economic geologists. His work in critical minerals crosses geologic systems and encompasses two that are of particular interest in critical minerals: lithium-tin-tungsten, and copper and gold deposits associated with tellurium, indium and other critical metals. 

He’s also investigating of the geologic processes that result in the formation and preservation of ore deposits with critical minerals, as well as the characterization of geologic materials and mining waste to better understand the availability of critical minerals. This work intersects with USGS mapping and characterization work across the country, including at the Colorado Geological Survey (CGS), which already has a home on Mines’ campus. CGS is conducting new surveys contributing to the mapping and characterization of critical minerals through funding from the USGS’s Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI) program. In recent years, CGS has published two reports on the potential economic availability of critical minerals in waste at abandoned mines. 

“These Earth MRI projects are producing high-value public data sets and helping define the critical mineral potential in some of these relatively unexplored regions of Colorado,” said Matt Morgan ’07, director and state geologist at CGS. “With CGS being at Mines, this allows Mines to take advantage of that mapping, and we can include professors and students on grants that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise.”  

While CGS won’t be moving into the new building, Morgan and his team will use its hoteling workspaces, attend seminars and be involved with lab-based projects.

“The new building really brings USGS, the academic side and all of this expertise together in a way that enhances what we know about innovation and mineral security,” Morgan said. “It really does what we do best here in Colorado—bring together science that serves the public interest.”  

Sharing space and ideas with the Mines community since they moved to campus in 2013 has opened up opportunities for CGS, Morgan said. He expects that to continue. 

“It’s the No. 1 mining school, the faculty are wonderful to work with, the best around and the students are real go-getters,” he said. “Mines students always dig in and get stuff done.”  

Watch a time-lapse of the USGS Energy and Minerals Research Facility being built on the Mines campus.