PAG Rock Implementation Project - Map

Project summary:

Environmental concerns exist surrounding the exposure of potentially acid generating (PAG) minerals to water and air and the subsequent aqueous products of their chemical weathering on the Earth's surface. Such concerns have the ability to impact completion of infrastructure projects such as road building. An available guidance manual, specifically written for the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) and based on a detailed understanding of the geology of Minnesota, is helpful in directing informed project task planning when PAG rock is anticipated in a project. To complete this guidance manual, MnDOT must first identify the geologic environments and/or formations where PAG rock may be encountered within future MnDOT right of ways (ROW). This estimated $10,000 research work plan then generates a digital map that ranks (from 0 -low, to 1 -high) the likelihood of encountering PAG minerals throughout MnDOT Districts #1 and #2. The final map has three underlying ranked components (from 0 -low, to 5 -high) including bedrock geology, mineral occurrences, and lithologic boundaries. These components are spatially intersected into a new, three-component, PAG-ranked, depth-to-bedrock map of the area to form the final PAG Map. Six new columns are generated in the final PAG Map attribute table and are populated with the outcome of six different combinations of all of the PAG rankings.