MS Excel File describing groundwater quality for historic in situ recovery (ISR) uranium mines in Texas.

In situ recovery (ISR) uranium mining is a technique in which uranium is extracted by a series of injection and recovery wells developed in a permeable sandstone host rock. Chemical constituents (lixiviants) are added to groundwater injection wells to mobilize uranium into groundwater. Before mining, baseline water quality is measured by sampling groundwater from the aquifer intended to be mined and over and underlying units over a geographic area that reflects the proposed mine location. After mining, groundwater is restored using a variety of techniques intended to return groundwater quality to as close to baseline as practicable. After groundwater has been restored, groundwater quality is monitored to determine if the groundwater chemistry has stabilized. The impact of ISR mining on groundwater is poorly understood because records archiving these impacts are difficult to locate. The USGS collected as many historic records describing ISR well fields as they could locate between 2008 and 2014. This data release summarizes historic records from ISR mines developed in Texas and compiled into spreadsheets by USGS mostly from records maintained by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

原地浸出（In situ recovery, ISR）铀矿开采是一种通过在渗透性砂岩围岩中布设一系列注入井与回收井来提取铀的技术。向地下注入井投加化学药剂（浸出剂，lixiviants），使铀溶出并进入地下水体。开采前，需在覆盖拟开采矿区的地理范围内，对拟开采含水层及其上下覆地层的地下水进行采样，以测定基线水质。开采作业结束后，采用多种修复技术，尽可能将地下水水质恢复至接近基线的水平。地下水修复完成后，需对水质进行监测，以确认地下水化学性质是否趋于稳定。目前学界对原地浸出铀矿开采对地下水的影响认知仍较为有限，原因在于相关影响的归档记录难以查找获取。美国地质调查局（USGS）于2008年至2014年间，尽可能收集了所有可获取的ISR矿场历史记录。本次发布的数据汇总了德克萨斯州境内ISR铀矿的历史记录，这些数据主要由美国地质调查局从德克萨斯州环境质量委员会（Texas Commission on Environmental Quality）留存的档案中提取并整理为电子表格。