## U.S. Geological Survey

Open-File Report 95-686

# Digital National Uranium Resource Evaluation (NURE) for the Pacific Northwest: A Contribution to the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project

## By Gary L. Raines and Cole L. Smith

## 1996

Image of typical uranium depositsThis figure depicts the geologic setting for typical uranium deposits found in the western United States.

### Introduction

The data provided on Internet for this report is derived primarily from the National Uranium Resource Evaluation (NURE) of the Department of Energy for the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. These data were acquired from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Branch of Geochemistry, and edited and reformatted for use in Arc/Info GIS. These data were acquired and edited before the establishment of the U.S. Geological Survey National Geochemical Data Base; however the original data with error corrections and important additional documentation are now available on CDROM.

The NURE program was established for an evaluation of the uranium resources of the United States in the 1970's. The program collected extensive and varied geochemical data. The data provides the most comprehensive, publicly available stream sediment geochemistry of large portions of the United States. Data were collected and catalogued by standard 1° by 2° quadrangles. A major consideration for use of the data is that the geochemical analytical methods were not consistent in the four different NURE laboratories (Savannah River, Oak Ridge, Lawrence Livermore, or Los Alamos). Thus there are differences between quadrangles due to differences in analytical method. For the Hailey quadrangle, the USGS analyzed archived splits of the NURE samples as well as some new samples. These USGS analyses were used here, and NURE analytical data were used for the other quadrangles in the Northwestern U.S. The total data are useful for regional evaluations that consider gross geochemical differences. Due to differences between laboratories and sampling methods, subtle differences can be interpreted with care within a single 1° by 2° quadrangle. As part of the initial editing of the data in a spreadsheet format, important information about the data were tabulated and other data were eliminated from this database. These tabulated files are listed in this report and are available on Internet.

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Files available for downloading:

View ReadMe file (of95-686_readme.txt; (8 kb).

Download Open-File Report 95-686 as a PDF file (of95-686.pdf; 168 kb).

Note: The digital NURE geochemical data is divided into three datasets based on the laboratory that provided the bulk of the analyses for a 1x2-degree quadrangle. You will need to download all three datasets if you want the complete set of data. If you are interested only in a certain area, please download the report as a PDF file and refer to Figure 1 to determine which dataset to download.

Download the Los Alamos National Laboratory Dataset in compressed (**.Z) Arc/Info Export format: of95-686_lanl.e00.Z (4.3 MB download file, 19.2 MB uncompressed).

Download the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Dataset in compressed (**.Z) Arc/Info Export format: of95-686_oak.e00.Z  (3.4 MB download file, 17.5 MB uncompressed).

Download the Savannah River National Laboratory Dataset in compressed (**.Z) Arc/Info Export format: of95-686_sr.e00.Z (736 kb download file, 3.3 MB uncompressed).

Download the README file in ASCII format (of95-686_readme.txt (8 kb).

Download Table 1: Analytical Methods informationin a self-extracting zipped archive (*.exe): of95-686_analmeth.exe (40 kb download file, 96 kb unzipped dBase format).

Download the NURE Geochemical Datasetsin a self-extracting zipped archive (*.exe): of95-686_nure.exe (4.9 MB download file, 22.2 MB unzipped QuattroPro format).

Please send comments and suggestions, or report problems, to: Gary Raines

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Download a free copy of Adobe Reader

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This report is also available as a printed publication from:

USGS Information Services 

Box 25286 Federal Center

Denver, CO 80225

Telephone: 1-888-ASK-USGS

E-mail: infoservices@usgs.gov

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Please send comments and suggestions, or report problems, to:
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Updated: May 2, 2007 (bwr, mfd)