We summarized the FY17 and part of FY18 results of the analysis of the effect of several parameters (e.g., total dissolved solids, specific competing metals, pH, and temperature) on REE recovery from geothermal brine in a manuscript that was submitted to Environmental Science & Technology. In this manuscript, we investigate biosorption as a potential means of recovering REEs from geothermal fluids, a low-grade but abundant REE source. We have previously engineered E. coli to express lanthanide binding tags (LBTs) on the cell surface and the resulting strain showed an increase in both REE adsorption capacity and selectivity. Here we examined how REE adsorption by the engineered E. coli is affected by various geochemical factors relevant to geothermal fluids, including total dissolved solids (TDS), temperature, pH, and the presence of competing trace metals.

The safety, effectiveness and longevity of many construction and geotechnical engineering projects rely on correctly accounting for the evolution of soil properties over time. Critical sediment properties, such as compressibility, can change in response to pore-fluid chemistry changes, particularly if the sediment contains appreciable concentrations of fine-grained materials. Pore-fluid changes act at the micro scale, altering interactions between sediment particles, or between sediment particles and the pore fluid. These micro-scale alterations change how sediment fabrics and void ratios develop, which directly impacts macro-scale properties such as sediment compressibility. The goal of this study is to correlate sediment compressibility, a macro-scale property, to the micro-scale pore-fluid chemistry effects and ultimately to the electrical sensitivity for each sediment. Such a correlation would allow compressibility behavior to be estimated from knowledge of the index properties and mineralogy profile for each sediment. The data in this release support the correlation effort by providing: 1) sedimentation results that provide insight into micro-scale sediment fabric and void ratio dependence on sediment/fluid interactions, and 2) consolidation results that quantify the macro-scale compressibility and recompressibility parameters for a suite of fine-grained sediments and differing pore fluids. The related journal publication (Jang and others, 2018) demonstrates how the macro-scale compressibility and recompressibility results from the consolidation tests are linked back, through the sediment fabric and void ratio data from the sedimentation tests, to the micro-scale impact of pore-fluid chemistry and sediment electrical sensitivity.

The safety, effectiveness and longevity of many construction and geotechnical engineering projects rely on correctly accounting for the evolution of soil properties over time. Critical sediment properties, such as compressibility, can change in response to pore-fluid chemistry changes, particularly if the sediment contains appreciable concentrations of fine-grained materials. Pore-fluid changes act at the micro scale, altering interactions between sediment particles, or between sediment particles and the pore fluid. These micro-scale alterations change how sediment fabrics and void ratios develop, which directly impacts macro-scale properties such as sediment compressibility. The goal of this study is to correlate sediment compressibility, a macro-scale property, to the micro-scale pore-fluid chemistry effects and ultimately to the electrical sensitivity for each sediment. Such a correlation would allow compressibility behavior to be estimated from knowledge of the index properties and mineralogy profile for each sediment. The data in this release support the correlation effort by providing: 1) sedimentation results that provide insight into micro-scale sediment fabric and void ratio dependence on sediment/fluid interactions, and 2) consolidation results that quantify the macro-scale compressibility and recompressibility parameters for a suite of fine-grained sediments and differing pore fluids. The related journal publication (Jang and others, 2018) demonstrates how the macro-scale compressibility and recompressibility results from the consolidation tests are linked back, through the sediment fabric and void ratio data from the sedimentation tests, to the micro-scale impact of pore-fluid chemistry and sediment electrical sensitivity.

The Marcellus Shale Energy and Environment Laboratory (MSEEL) is a long-term field site and laboratory at the Northeast Natural Energy LLC (NNE) production facility, adjacent to the Monongahela River, located in western Monongalia County, West Virginia, USA. NNE began drilling two horizontal production wells, MIP (Morgantown Industrial Park) -5H and MIP-3H, in the Marcellus Shale in 2014. The wells were completed in December 2015. Large volumes of wastewater are generated with natural gas production. These wastewaters contain organic and inorganic chemical constituents from fracturing fluids used during drilling and stimulation of gas in host rocks/shale, as well as chemical compounds that are derived from formation water and the solid shale. Many of the organic and inorganic substances in the wastewater are potentially toxic and could pose an environmental risk if released due to spills, leaks, or unsafe disposal practices. An on-site storage tank and a separator tank (MIP-5H), both containing produced wastewater, were sampled from 2015 through 2019. The storage tank received wastewater from multiple wells (not just MIP-5H). The data associated with the chemical conditions of these two tanks, at the time of sampling, have been previously published in a companion data release (https://doi.org/10.5066/P9Q3Y16S). The current data release reports on a sub-set of produced water samples co-collected from the above-mentioned storage and separator tanks during the 2016-2019 period, which were reserved for explicit experiments and analyses associated with detailed geochemical characterization of both the solid phase and dissolved fractions. The eleven machine readable data files (*.csv format) provided herein, and the description of the data contained in each, are described in the Entity and Attribute section (xml tag 'eainfo') of this metadata file.

Description of a conceptual commercial process to remove rare earth elements (REEs) from geothermal brine, based on a small-scale laboratory experiment to load, strip, and regenerate a ligand-based media used to adsorb REEs from a simulated brine doped with known mineral concentrations.

This submission includes the following: - Field Characteristics: Describes the geological and production field characteristics of sampling sites - Geochemistry of Produced Fluids Idaho-Nevada-New Mexico-Oregon-Utah: Summarizes the all the analytical results for aqueous samples collected from geothermal production wells, hydrocarbon production wells, and hot springs. - Geochemistry of Reservoir Rocks & Calcite Scales Nevada-Utah: Analytical results of trace element analyses of reservoir drill cuttings from Beowawe, Dixie Valley, Roosevelt Hot Springs, Uinta Basin, and Paradox Basin (Aneth field); also includes analyses of Dixie Valley calcite scales and rocks in the Sevier Thermal Belt, Utah. - Lithology and mineralogy of drill cuttings from Beowawe, Dixie Valley and Roosevelt Hot Springs: Lithological and mineralogical characterization of drill cuttings from Beowawe, Dixie Valley and Roosevelt Hot Springs - Geological Settings of Critical Element Mineral Deposits: Brief summary and references regarding the geological settings of critical element mineral deposits

This submission includes the following: - Field Characteristics: Describes the geological and production field characteristics of sampling sites - Geochemistry of Produced Fluids Idaho-Nevada-New Mexico-Oregon-Utah: Summarizes the all the analytical results for aqueous samples collected from geothermal production wells, hydrocarbon production wells, and hot springs. - Geochemistry of Reservoir Rocks & Calcite Scales Nevada-Utah: Analytical results of trace element analyses of reservoir drill cuttings from Beowawe, Dixie Valley, Roosevelt Hot Springs, Uinta Basin, and Paradox Basin (Aneth field); also includes analyses of Dixie Valley calcite scales and rocks in the Sevier Thermal Belt, Utah. - Lithology and mineralogy of drill cuttings from Beowawe, Dixie Valley and Roosevelt Hot Springs: Lithological and mineralogical characterization of drill cuttings from Beowawe, Dixie Valley and Roosevelt Hot Springs - Geological Settings of Critical Element Mineral Deposits: Brief summary and references regarding the geological settings of critical element mineral deposits

The work evaluates, develops and demonstrates flexible, scalable mineral extraction technology for geothermal brines based upon solid phase sorbent materials with a specific focus upon rare earth elements (REEs). The selected organic and inorganic sorbent materials demonstrated high performance for collection of trace REEs, precious and valuable metals. The nanostructured materials typically performed better than commercially available sorbents. Data contains organic and inorganic sorbent removal efficiency, Sharkey Hot Springs (Idaho) water chemistry analysis, and rare earth removal efficiency from select sorbents. The Sharkley Hot Springs water chemistry presented includes spiked levels of REEs.

Experimental results from several studies exploring the impact of pH and acid volume on the stripping of rare earth elements (REEs) loaded onto ligand-based media via an active column. The REEs in this experiment were loaded onto the media through exposure to a simulated geothermal brine with known mineral concentrations. The data include the experiment results, rare earth element concentrations, and the experimental parameters varied.

This report documents the results of investigations dealing with the concentrations and availabilities of strategic, critical and valuable materials (SCVM) in produced waters from geothermal and hydrocarbon reservoirs (50-250 degrees C) in Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and Utah. Analytical results were obtained for water samples from 47 production wells in 12 geothermal fields. Results were also obtained for samples from 25 oil/gas production wells in the Uinta and Paradox Basins and Covenant oil field, from 14 groundwater wells in the Tularosa play fairway (New Mexico), and from 20 groundwater wells and hot springs in the Sevier Thermal Belt (southwestern Utah). Please refer to GDR Submission 1126 (linked below) which houses the data summarized in the final report.