THE BIG QUESTION FOR THIS MINEQUEST:

How will an industry anchored in an ancient lake bed meet the challenge of new technologies?

Meet trona (Soda Ash) (Trona), which is a water-bearing sodium bicarbonate (Na2CO3) compound. The physical appearance of Trona is a pale brown, gold, or yellowish, grey or white rock http://www.wma-minelife.com/trona/tronmine/data0000.htm found in areas where water was once present.

Wyoming trona deposits are shown in red.

              

Wyoming's trona originated as a precipitate from an ancient large freshwater lake. Lake Gosiute http://www.fieldmuseum.org/expeditions/lance/map.html once covered as much as 15,000 square miles in southwestern Wyoming. Over a long period of evaporation, trona settled to the lake bed to form the deposit, which we mine today.

Wyoming has the world's largest deposit of trona and supplies about 95% of the nation's needs for this material. Wyoming's Trona industry produced over 16 million tons, employing over 2100 workers in 2003. All Wyoming Soda Ash is mined underground.

Glassmaking consumes about 55% of trona output, followed by the chemical industry, which uses about 23%. Other uses include soap, paper manufacturing, and water treatment. All baking soda comes from Trona, so you may have a boxful of a Wyoming Trona product in your kitchen.   

In this Minequest, you will visit several websites to gather information about the history of Trona and Trona mining, find interesting facts about the Trona industry as it is today, discover the many uses of Soda Ash, understand the economic impact of the Trona industry on Wyoming, and develop ideas to help the industry face change in our technological world. Please print a copy of the Student Answer Sheet now to prepare for beginning, or your teacher will provide one for you.

Task #1: Take five minutes to write down what you know about trona also known as soda ash.

MOVING ON ...

Take your notes about what you already know about trona and your student answer sheet to the MINING section. You will need both pages again as you journey through this minequest.

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WEBQUEST CONCEPT From BOB FAIBL and DEBBIE VARRAS