Texas Almanac, 1992-1993 Page: 615
656 p. : ill. (some col.), maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this book.
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Nonfuel Mineral Production and Value,
1988, 1989 and 1990
Source: U.S. Bureau of Mines
(Production measured by mine shipments, sales or marketable production, including consumption by producer.)
1988 1989 *1990
Produc- Value Produc- Value Produc- Value
Mineral tion (add 000) tion (add 000) tion (add 000)
Cement:
Masonry, thousand short tons ............... ... .136 $10,800 133 $10,735 145 $11,750
Portland, thousand short tons ................. 7,000 292,256 7,200 286,236 8,000 320,000
ttClays, metric tons .......................... 2,714,451 17,468 2,276,629 15,962 2,537,031 17,966
Gem stones......... ....... .......... ..... t 340 t ** t **
Gypsum, thousand short tons .................... 1,943 15,790 1,993 17,044 2,036 17,932
Lime, thousand short tons.................... ... 1,192 55,935 1,304 60,829 1,297 60,505
Salt, thousand short tons............... ..... . .. 7,802 62,925 7,856 69,934 7,852 79,464
Sand and gravel:
Construction, thousand short tons ............ 50,370 171,167 43,900 155,800 58,000 210,700
Industrial, thousand short tons............... 1,631 26,645 1,661 29,107 1,700 29,400
Stone:
Crushed, thousand short tons................ 82,000 271,300 76,823 252,982 82,800 285,700
Dimension, short tons ........................ 66,354 8,310 81,268 12,449 84,500 12,600
Sulphur (Frasch), thousand metric tons ......... 2,622 ** 2,446 ** 2,240 **
Talc and pyrophyllite, metric tons .............. 236,730 4,466 241,777 4,564 ** **
lJndistributed ......... ...................... ... 531,416 ... 546,812 ... 509,648
Total Texas Values ..... .. . . .. ... $1,468,818$ ... $1,462,454 ... $1,555,665
*Preliminary. +Not available.
includes clays (ball clay, kaolin), helium, (crude, grade A), iron ore, magnesium compounds, magnesium
metal, sodium, sulfate (natural), and values indicated by symbol **
Estimated.
**Data withheld to avoid disclosing proprietary data; value included with Undistributed.
ttExcludes certain clays; kind and value included in Undistributed.Texas produce brine by solution mining of subsurface salt
deposits, mostly in West Texas counties such as Andrews,
Crane, Ector, Loving, Midland, Pecos, Reeves, Ward and
other West Texas counties. These wells in the Permian ba-
sin dissolve salt from the Salado Formation, an enormous
salt deposit that extends in the subsurface from north of Big
Bend northward to Kansas, has an east-west width of 150 to
200 miles, and may have several hundred feet of net salt
thickness. The majority of the brine is used in the petrole-
um industry, but it also is used in water softening, the
chemical industry and other uses.
Three Gulf Coast counties, Fort Bend, Duval and Jef-
ferson, have brine stations that produce from salt domes.
BUILDING STONE (DIMENSION STONE) - Granite and
limestone currently are quarried for use as dimension
stone. The granite quarries are located in Burnet, Gillespie,
Llano and Mason counties; the limestone quarries are in
Shackelford and Williamson counties. Past production of
limestone for use as dimension stone has been reported in
Burnet, Gillespie, Jones, Tarrant, Travis and several other
counties. There has also been production of sandstone in
various counties for use as dimension stone.
CEMENT MATERIALS - Cement is currently manufac-
tured at 13 plants in Bexar, Comal, Dallas, Ector, Ellis,
Hays, McLennan, Nolan, and Potter counties. Many of
these plants utilize Cretaceous limestones and shales or
clays as raw materials for the cement. On the Texas High
Plains, a cement plant near Amarillo uses impure caliche as
the chief raw material. Iron oxide, also a constituent of ce-
ment, is available from the iron ore deposits of East Texas
and from smelter slag. Gypsum, added to the cement as a
retarder, is found chiefly in North Central Texas, Central
Texas and the Trans-Pecos area.
CHROMIUM - Chromite-bearing rock has been found
in several small deposits around the margin of the Coal
Creek serpentinite mass in northeastern Gillespie County
and northwestern Blanco County. Exploration has not re-
vealed significant deposits.
CLAYS - Texas has an abundance and variety of ce-
ramic and nonceramic clays and is one of the country's
leading producers of clay products.
Almost any kind of clay, ranging from common clay
used to make ordinary brick and tile to clays suitable for
manufacture of specialty whitewares, can be used for ce-
ramic purposes. Fire clay suitable for use as refractories
occurs chiefly in East and North Central Texas; ball clay, a
high-quality plastic ceramic clay, is found locally in East
Texas.
Ceramic clay suitable for quality structural clay prod-
ucts such as structural building brick, paving brick and
drain tile is especially abundant in East and North Central
Texas. Common clay suitable for use in the manufacture of
cement and ordinary brick is found in most counties of the
state. Many of the Texas clays will expand or bloat upon
rapid firing and are suitable for the manufacture of
lightweight aggregate, which is used mainly in concrete
blocks and highway surfacing.Nonceramic clays are utilized without firing. They are
used primarily as bleaching and adsorbent clays, fillers,
coaters, additives, bonding clays, drilling muds, catalysts
and potentially as sources of alumina. Most of the non-
ceramic clays in Texas are bentonites and fuller's earth.
These occur extensively in the Coastal Plain and locally in
the High Plains and Big Bend areas. Kaolin clays in parts of
East Texas are potential sources of such nonceramic prod-
ucts as paper coaters and fillers, rubber fillers and drilling
agents Relatively high in alumina, these clays also are a
potential source of metallic aluminum.
COAL (see also Lignite) - Bituminous coal, which occurs
in North Central, South and West Texas, was a significant
energy source in Texas prior to the large-scale develop-
ment of oil and gas. During the period from 1895 to 1943,
Texas mines produced more than 25 million tons of coal.
The mines were inactive for many years, but the renewed
interest in coal as a major energy source prompted a reval-
uation of Texas' coal deposits. In the late 1970s, bituminous
coal production resumed in the state on a limited scale
when mines were opened in Coleman, Erath and Webb
counties.
Much of the state's bituminous coal occurs in North
Central Texas. Deposits are found there in Pennsyl-
vanian rocks within a large area that includes Coleman,
Eastland, Erath, Jack, McCulloch, Montague, Palo Pinto,
Parker, Throckmorton, Wise, Young and other counties.
Before the general availability of oil and gas, underground
coal mines near Thurber, Bridgeport, Newcastle, Strawn and
other points annually produced significant coal tonnages.
Preliminary evaluations indicate substantial amounts of
coal may remain in the North Central Texas area. The coal
seams there are generally no more than 30 inches thick and
are commonly covered by well-consolidated overburden.
Ash and sulphur content are high. Beginning in 1979, two
bituminous coal mine operations in North Central Texas -
one in southern Coleman County and one in northwestern
Erath County - produced coal to be used as fuel by the
cement industry. Neither mine is currently operating.
In South Texas, bituminous coal occurs in the Eagle
Pass district of Maverick County, and bituminous cannel
coal is present in the Santo Tomas district of Webb County.
The Eagle Pass area was a leading coal-producing district
in Texas during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The bitumi-
nous coal in that area, which occurs in the Upper Creta-
ceous Olmos Formation, has a high ash content and a mod-
erate moisture and sulphur content. According to reports,
Maverick County coal beds range from four to seven feet
thick.
The cannel coals of western Webb County occur near
the Rio Grande in middle Eocene strata. They were mined
for more than 50 years and used primarily as a boiler fuel.
Mining ceased from 1939 until 1978, when a surface mine
was opened 30 miles northwest of Laredo to produce cannel
coal for use as fuel in the cement industry and for export.
An additional mine has since been opened in that county.
Tests show that the coals of the Webb County Santo Tomas615
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Kingston, Mike. Texas Almanac, 1992-1993, book, 1991; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth279642/m1/619/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.