GEOLOGY &
GEOGRAPHY
HIGHLIGHTS
Mark Steltenpohl, Department Chairman
Auburn Students and Professors
Aid in the Mining of Gold in Alabama
Auburn students could soon be a part of the
opening of an operating gold mine – just 50 miles
northwest of Auburn. Students and professors
from the Department of Geology and Geography
are aiding in the drilling and development of
the deposit site, Hog Mountain, located in the
Goldville district of northern Tallapoosa County.
Discovered in 1839, Hog Mountain became the
largest gold producer both in the district and in
Alabama.
whole drilling process is done,” Saunders said.
“Our students thoroughly enjoyed witnessing an
operating drill rig and seeing the rock come right
out of the ground.”
Predicting Nuclear and
Environmental Disasters: Wolf
Studies Sites for Potential
Earthquakes
The family of Auburn senior and geology major,
Lyndsey Padgett, owns and operates the Hog
Mountain site.
The 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
disaster, which was initiated by an earthquakegenerated tsunami, heightened concerns about the
potential for earthquakes to cause similar disasters
in the United States. As a result, government
agencies overseeing the safety of nuclear power
plants, utilities, and energy-related infrastructure
assembled groups of experts to provide them with
the most up-to-date scientific assessments of
potential earthquake sources that might affect their
facilities. Professor Lorraine Wolf, a geophysicist
in the Department of Geology and Geography,
is one such expert, and for the last three years
she has worked with a team of researchers on a
seismic hazard assessment for the Hanford Site
in southeastern Washington. Hanford is home to
the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and
is a site for nuclear waste storage, with a nearby
nuclear plant. The surrounding region also hosts a
number of major dams along the Columbia River.
The project, funded by the Department of Energy
and managed by Battelle, is aimed at predicting the
likelihood that large earthquakes will occur and
estimating the ground shaking that would result.
“We are very grateful to Lyndsey and her family
for allowing groups of Auburn students to visit and
learn from the site,” Saunders said. “It’s really been
beneficial for everyone involved.”
“The gold rush actually began
in the east among Alabama,
Georgia, and the Carolinas.
When gold was discovered in
the west, however, mining and
drilling came to a halt in the
eastern states,” said James
Saunders, professor in the
Department of Geology and
Geography.
“Drilling picked back up somewhat during the
Depression, and has since picked up in the past
few years at sites like Hog Mountain. We don’t
have much of a record of gold exploration in our
area, and there are no operating gold mines in the
southeastern United States at this time, so the idea
of a functioning gold mine in Alabama is definitely
exciting.”
The general geologic setting of gold deposits in
Alabama has many similarities to other quartzvein-hosted gold systems in areas of New Zealand
and Australia.
The excavation at Hog Mountain has allowed
many Auburn students within the Department of
Geology and Geography to gain valuable, hands-on
experience.
“Last spring we took a field trip up to Hog
Mountain for one of my classes to see how the
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Journey/2014
the Mississippi River and the Missouri/Arkansas/
Kentucky/Tennessee border.
“We know that three large earthquake