Illinois

Summary

Federal investments through STATEMAP, Earth MRI, and NGGDPP have delivered major benefits to Illinois.

  • Preserved cores and cuttings from 71,000 wells (78 million drilled feet) — safeguarding irreplaceable data, avoiding costly re-drilling, and unlocking samples for critical mineral assessments.
  • High-resolution surficial and 3D mapping — reducing project risk, cutting change orders on public works, and improving groundwater and land-use planning.
  • Direct impacts on Illinois’ billion-dollar aggregate market, seismic hazard mitigation, and waste-siting decisions.

STATEMAP

  • Cook & DuPage Counties (NE Illinois): Surficial/3D mapping of glacial and postglacial deposits to support groundwater management, land planning, and engineering projects.
  • Statewide: Updated 1:500,000 mapping improves waste-siting, seismic hazard evaluation, soil mapping, and aggregate resource planning.

Earth MRI

  • Illinois City & Muscatine Quadrangles (NW Illinois): Sphalerite (zinc ore) identified in Pennsylvanian shales; high magnetic anomaly indicates buried mafic/ultramafic rocks in the Yavapai Province.
  • Coal Valley Quadrangle: Coal resources evaluated for critical minerals; additional surveys planned across western and southern Illinois.
  • Hicks Dome (southern Illinois): Targeting fluorite (F, REEs), regolith (REEs), intrusions (Nb, REEs), and mine wastes (F, REEs).
  • Upper Mississippi Valley District: Lead/zinc mine wastes examined for Zn, Ge, Ga, In.
  • Future targets: Phosphorites, shales (P, REEs, Cu, Ni, V); industrial waste sites near LaSalle-Peru and East St. Louis.

NGGDPP (Data Preservation)

  • Core Annex Facility (14,000 sq ft): Houses 105,000 boxes of cuttings from 71,000 wells.
  • Recent upgrades: new climate control, compactor shelving, and re-boxing efforts to extend storage capacity.
  • Preserved 1,000+ boxes of Tunnel and Reservoir Program (TARP) cores from Chicago — one of the largest U.S. public works projects.
  • TARP cores intersect target intervals for Earth MRI’s Ordovician Phosphate-REE project, some reaching Precambrian basement.
  • Supports Chicago’s billion-dollar aggregate industry, which faces dwindling surface reserves.

Impact for Illinois:

  • Protects critical water and mineral resources, supports economic growth, and avoids costly re-drilling.
  • Provides data for hazard mitigation (seismic, waste siting).
  • Strengthens industry competitiveness (aggregates, coal, potential REE resources).
  • Ensures long-term scientific value through modernized storage and data access.