Browsing by Author "Thiel, George A."
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Item Bulletin No. 23. The Limestones and Marls of Minnesota(Minnesota Geological Survey, 1933) Stauffer, Clinton R.; Thiel, George A.Minnesota has extensive deposits of calcium carbonate in the form of limestones, dolomites, and marls. This report deals primarily with the distribution and chemical composition of these carbonate deposits and the uses for which they are suited. The dolomites are the most widely distributed and the most readily available carbonate rocks in Minnesota. They are quarried in large quantities in the southeastern part of the state, where the lower Ordovician rocks are predominantly dolomitic limestones. Limestones high in calcium are far less abundant, being confined to several strata that are more limited in their distribution. Locally they have been quarried for their high lime content. The marls have been but very recently recognized as one of the valuable mineral resources of the state. These light, grayish muds underlie marshes, bogs, and lakes; they are not often visible at the surface. Most persons, therefore, are unfamiliar with the name, appearance, and distribution of marl. It can be distinguished from other muds by its light color, its abundant shell fragments, and its violent reaction with acid. The marl beds of Minnesota vary in thickness, but they are seldom more than thirty feet thick.Item Bulletin No. 25. The Architectural, Structural, and Monumental Stones of Minnesota(Minnesota Geological Survey, 1935) Thiel, George A.; Dutton, Carl E.The stone industry in Minnesota began more than a century ago when limestone was quarried to build part of Fort Snelling. From this small beginning in the early history of the territory, the industry has progressed, with periods of fluctuations and retardation, until today it has become the second in value in the mineral production of the state. The stone industry now gives employment to hundreds of persons, from trained administrators and salesmen to quarrymen and skilled stonecutters and carvers. Early geological surveys demonstrated that the state was endowed with an unlimited supply and a great variety of building material. The results of these surveys were published in earlier reports by the Minnesota Geological Survey and by the United States Geological Survey. Since the publication of these reports new varieties of stone have been located and quarried for commercial purposes, and numerous new properties have been developed in widely separated regions within the state. Furthermore, great strides have been made in the methods of quarrying and fabricating stone. Modern machinery has eliminated much of the tedious manual labor, and wastage has been greatly reduced by the utilization of by-products. In this report an attempt is made to acquaint architects, building contractors, and real estate firms with the merits of the various structural and ornamental stones quarried and fabricated in Minnesota. Until recent years our stone products were used more extensively in distant states than within our own communities. Minnesota stones enjoyed a national reputation for beauty and adaptability before their merits were recognized by our local builders. Even today many architects and structural contractors do not realize that more than fifty distinct varieties of architectural stone are quarried and fabricated in this state.Item Bulletin No. 29. The Paleozoic and Related Rocks of Southeastern Minnnesota(Minnesota Geological Survey, 1941) Stauffer, Clinton R.; Thiel, George A.The area covered by this report is mainly the southeastern part of Minnesota. It includes that portion of the state lying along or bounded by the St. Croix, the Minnesota, and the Mississippi rivers from Pine County southward to the Iowa state line and from Brown County eastward to the Wisconsin state line. Adjoining areas are referred to at various points in the text, chiefly for correlative purposes or in order to clarify the discussion. This area lies mostly within the hardwood timber section. Numerous towns and villages dot the region, which is part of the more thickly populated area of Minnesota, settled for over seventy-five years and first pioneered over one hundred years ago. Many of the old traders and missionaries traveled its navigable waters early in the seventeenth century; and for untold centuries before that it was an important part of the great hunting ground of the American Indian. The state of Minnesota lies on the southern border of the great Canadian Shield, so that much of its surface is covered by the preCambrian rocks characteristic of that ancient land mass. There more recent sediments overlie these older rocks, they vary in age from Cambrian to Cretaceous and later, for the glacial drift and the recent non-marine sediments may lie directly on the preCambrian. The strand line of Paleozoic and late Mesozoic time often passed through Minnesota; and the position of the ancient shore, varying from time to time, left many unconformities. The significance of some of these unconformities may not yet be fully appreciated, but they range from short breaks (diastems) in sedimentation, like those in the St. Croixian series, to great erosion intervals (disconformities) like that between the Maquoketa formation and the Cedar Valley limestone, where a whole system and fully half of another are wanting. It is evident, therefore, that during these long intervals diastrophism caused the land mass to the north to be extended beyond the boundaries of the state and that during such periods profound erosion must have affected this area, removing an unknown amount of the surface, probably base-leveling it several times.Item Bulletin No. 31. The Geology and Underground Waters of Southern Minnesota(Minnesota Geological Survey, 1944) Thiel, George A.The first reports on the water supplies of southern Minnesota were made late in the past century by my distinguished predecessor, Dr. N. H. Winchell, and his associates. The latest report before the present bulletin was by Professor C. W. Hall, Dr. O. E. Meinzer, and Mr. M. L. Fuller, and was issued in 1911. These two reports were excellent and included essentially all the data available at the time of their preparation. The supply of these reports was soon exhausted, and many requests for information on water supplies of the region were received at the office of the Minnesota Geological Survey from officers of municipalities, railroad companies, canning and packing plants, creamery operators, fanners, well drilling engineers, and from industrial plants. New data were steadily becoming available, chiefly by the sinking of new wells, and it soon became apparent that if the State Geological Survey were to answer these inquiries adequately it must obtain and utilize the information as it became available. Notwithstanding his other heavy university duties, Dr. George A. Thiel agreed to undertake the collection and correla tion of the increasing volume of well records. The results of his researches, together with water analyses and other data supplied by the State Board of Health and by the Division of Lands and Minerals of the State Department of Conservation, are presented herewith. References to papers treating the water supplies of southern Minnesota may be found in this report and also in Bulletin 30 of the Survey, issued in 1943.Item Bulletin No. 32, The Geology and Underground Waters of Northeastern Minnesota(Minnesota Geological Survey, 1947) Thiel, George A.In 1924 the Minnesota Geological Survey began the task of compiling up-to-date information on the underground waters of Minnesota. Dr. Ira S. Allison carried on much of the work for the northwestern portion of the state and prepared Bulletin 22, The Geology and Water Resources of Northwestern Minnesota, which was published in 1932. Shortly thereafter, Professor Thiel began the revision of the data for the southern half of Minnesota which had originally been discussed in the United States Geological Survey Water-Supply Paper 256 by C. W. Hall, O. E. Meinzer, and M. L. Fuller. Dr. Thiel's revision appeared as Minnesota Geological Survey Bulletin 31 in 1944. The present bulletin completes the series on the underground waters of Minnesota and makes available in published form data on the underground water resources of every county in the state. These bulletins cannot be considered final because water will continue to be developed as long as people inhabit the state. The Minnesota Geological Survey will therefore welcome cooperation in keeping up its file of data on underground waters and will be pleased to answer inquiries not covered by the published material. The state owes a debt to Professor Thiel for the very large amount of painstaking work which has gone into Bulletins 31 and 32. The three bulletins arc available from the University of Minnesota Press at a moderate price. Attention should also be called to the fact that all legal matters regarding underground, as well as surface waters, are by act of the legislature placed under the jurisdiction of the Department of Conservation.Item Bulletin No. 37. Minnesota's Rocks and Waters A Geological Story(Minnesota Geological Survey, 1954) Schwartz, George M.; Thiel, George A.This volume has been prepared in an attempt to make available to the citizens of Minnesota a general summary of the major geological features of the state and to stimulate a greater interest in, and appreciation of, their natural surroundings. Ability to interpret the landscape requires knowledge of the forces that produced it. One may admire the beauty of a waterfall or marvel at its grandeur, but to appreciate it fully, one must know how it was formed. Man draws from the earth many materials which are necessary for life and happiness, and he deals with geological conditions in many of his daily activities. For example, he plows the soil, which is composed largely of weathered rock materials, and cuts the surface rocks as he grades roads and railroads and excavates foundation places for his skyscrapers and his great plants in which to exploit the earth's resources. Yet how many of the thousands of citizens of Minnesota employed in these enterprises understand the geological relationships of the materials with which they labor? How much greater would be their interest in their assigned tasks if they knew more about the formation of the materials which occupy their attention? An understanding of geological processes guides us in the search for mineral resources and aids us in understanding the forces which produced them. Soil erosion, one of our most important problems, is closely related to the geology of the area involved. The resources of any region determine to a marked degree the activity of its inhabitants. They are the foundation of our well- being, the hope of our future. Minnesota, though known as an agricultural state, has great mineral wealth, and many of its citizens are engaged in mineral industries. All of the mineral substances produced from the rocks of the state may be classified as industrial minerals even though some are metals and others nonmetals. :Metal mining is restricted to the iron ranges, but the nonmetals include a great variety of materials-such as limestone for agricultural lime. marl, sand and gravel, clays and shales, wool rock, and structural and architectural stone-which are excavated and processed at many places in the state. The authors of this book have had many years of experience in educational work in Minnesota. It is their opinion, based upon observation and experience, that in the curriculums in our schools not enough time is devoted to a study of our own state and its resources. It is hoped that this volume will furnish science teachers 'with accurate information which they can in turn pass on to their students at the appropriate time, and that citizens at large will find it a source of information regarding their state. Technical terms have been held to a minimum in order to make the text intelligible to those unfamiliar with detailed geological terminology. The authors know that this method inevitably results in generalities that may not always take into account all detailed scientific information available to the geologist. We hope, however, that geologists will recommend the book to their friends and that they will not hesitate to explain some of the exceptions that are bound to appear where such broad generalizations are employed for the sake of simplicity. Geology is the science that weaves all the other natural sciences together into a comprehensive whole and this results in great complexity. The authors, with full awareness of the magnitude of the task, have attempted to resolve complex geological details by employing a nonscientific assistant who screened out much of the detail and obtained a residue that is sufficiently free of technicalities to be comprehensible to the general reader.Item Bulletin No. 37. Minnesota's Rocks and Waters A Geological Story(Minnesota Geological Survey, 1963) Schwartz, George M.; Thiel, George A.This volume has been prepared in an attempt to make available to the citizens of Minnesota a general summary of the major geological features of the state and to stimulate a greater interest in, and appreciation of, their natural surroundings. Ability to interpret the landscape requires knowledge of the forces that produced it. One may admire the beauty of a waterfall or marvel at its grandeur, but to appreciate it fully, one must know how it was formed. Man draws from the earth many materials which are necessary for life and happiness, and he deals with geological conditions in many of his daily activities. For example, he plows the soil, which is composed largely of weathered rock materials, and cuts the surface rocks as he grades roads and railroads and excavates foundation places for his skyscrapers and his great plants in which to exploit the earth's resources. Yet how many of the thousands of citizens of Minnesota employed in these enterprises understand the geological relationships of the materials with which they labor? How much greater would be their interest in their assigned tasks if they knew more about the formation of the materials which occupy their attention? An understanding of geological processes guides us in the search for mineral resources and aids us in understanding the forces which produced them. Soil erosion, one of our most important problems, is closely related to the geology of the area involved. The resources of any region determine to a marked degree the activity of its inhabitants. They are the foundation of our well- being, the hope of our future. Minnesota, though known as an agricultural state, has great mineral wealth, and many of its citizens are engaged in mineral industries. All of the mineral substances produced from the rocks of the state may be classified as industrial minerals even though some are metals and others nonmetals. :Metal mining is restricted to the iron ranges, but the nonmetals include a great variety of materials-such as limestone for agricultural lime. marl, sand and gravel, clays and shales, wool rock, and structural and architectural stone-which are excavated and processed at many places in the state. The authors of this book have had many years of experience in educational work in Minnesota. It is their opinion, based upon observation and experience, that in the curriculums in our schools not enough time is devoted to a study of our own state and its resources. It is hoped that this volume will furnish science teachers 'with accurate information which they can in turn pass on to their students at the appropriate time, and that citizens at large will find it a source of information regarding their state. Technical terms have been held to a minimum in order to make the text intelligible to those unfamiliar with detailed geological terminology. The authors know that this method inevitably results in generalities that may not always take into account all detailed scientific information available to the geologist. We hope, however, that geologists will recommend the book to their friends and that they will not hesitate to explain some of the exceptions that are bound to appear where such broad generalizations are employed for the sake of simplicity. Geology is the science that weaves all the other natural sciences together into a comprehensive whole and this results in great complexity. The authors, with full awareness of the magnitude of the task, have attempted to resolve complex geological details by employing a nonscientific assistant who screened out much of the detail and obtained a residue that is sufficiently free of technicalities to be comprehensible to the general reader.Item Geology of Alexander Ramsey State Park(Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, 1947-12) Thiel, George A.Brief summary of the geology of Alexander Ramsey State Park, near Redwood Falls, Mn. Although originating as a state park in 1911, it was later transferred to the city of Redwood Falls as a regional park.Item Geology of John Latsch State Park(Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, 1953-10) Thiel, George A.Brief summary of the geology of John Latsch State Park, southeastern Minnesota.Item Geology of Lake Carlos State Park(Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, 1958-02) Thiel, George A.Brief summary of the geology of Lake Carlos State Park, Douglas County, Minnesota.Item The Geology of Minneopa State Park(Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, 1949-10) Thiel, George A.Brief summary of the geology of Minneopa State Park, near Mankato, Minnesota.Item The High Calcium Limestones of Minnesota(Minnesota Geological Survey, 1947) Thiel, George A.; Stauffer, Clinton R.Item High-Silica Sands of Minnesota(Minnesota Geological Survey, 1957) Thiel, George A.Item The Iron Ores of Southeastern Minnesota(Minnesota Geological Survey, 1949) Stauffer, Clinton R.; Thiel, George A.