Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - ISGS New Mineral Lab [PAGE 11]

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Investigations are now under way dealing with the silica, novaculite, gannister, fullers' earth, and sand and gravel deposits of southern Illinois, with a view to extending their uses. Other lines of research that seek to turn the State's mineral resources into industrial development include searches for more mineralized belts of fluorspar in Hardin County, using geophysical methods where the bedrock is hidden below a surficial clay mantle, geophysical search for buried gravel deposits that may be reservoirs for water supplies close to municipalities that are in need of ^additional supplies, a study of more efficient recovery methods of petroleum in those oil pools of the State which have been pumped close to the economic limit of production, and a search for additional oil and gas structures favorable for test drilling when the over production of oil elsewhere has subsided.

MINERAL ECONOMICS

For some years the State Geological Survey has cooperated with the Federal Government in the collection of mineral statistics, except in the case of coal which are efficiently gathered by the State Department of Mines and Minerals. To-day, however, production studies cover only a small portion of the economic picture. Accordingly the Survey's new program includes the following items, ( i ) prompt collection and early publication of mineral production statistics, and (2) studies in distribution and consumption of Illinois materials in relation to materials produced elsewhere, including non-competitive as well as competitive. This, it is believed, will provide a complete picture of the flow of minerals into and out of the State, the conditions which govern the flow, and the opportunities for developing and enlarging the outlet for Illinois minerals.

FIELD AND LABORATORY FACILITIES

To attain these and other objects within the scope of the Geological Survey, the Survey is adopting the most modern devices for field investigations and is providing laboratory facilities for fundamental physical and chemical studies of the earth's materials and of problems of their utilization, utilizing whenever available special equipment in the laboratories of the University. Geochemical laboratories,—The geochemical laboratories of the Survey include an analytical laboratory, a special fuels laboratory, a special non-fuels laboratory, a high temperature laboratory, and an industrial research laboratory. The analytical laboratory is equipped for proximate and ultimate analysis of coal, analysis of rocks, clays, silica sands, coal ash,

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