nahcolite

As a result, most of the nahcolite in the oil shale becomes a fine powder what could screened out.

The natural mineral form is known as 'nahcolite'.

Nahcolite was deposited as beds during periods of high evaporation in the basin.

Otherwise, the minerals trona or thermonatrite and nahcolite are commonly formed.

It has been used in the US state of Colorado to extract nahcolite (sodium bicarbonate).

The rock is also mined for deposits of nahcolite and dawsonite, two types of sodium minerals.

Natural Soda produces pure natural sodium bicarbonate from its extensive nahcolite leases which cover more than 9,400 acres.

Nahcolite was first described in 1928 for an occurrence in a lava tunnel at Mount Vesuvius, Italy.

Heavy petroleum exploration and extraction activities occur throughout the area, and the region is mined for minerals such as nahcolite and dawsonite.

I n most cases the mineral natron will form together with some amount of nahcolite (sodium bicarbonate), resulting in salt mixtures like the historical natron.

Some oil shales yield sulfur, ammonia, alumina, soda ash, uranium, and nahcolite as shale-oil extraction byproducts.

The mineral natron is often found in association with thermonatrite, nahcolite, trona, halite, mirabilite, gaylussite, gypsum, and calcite.

Nahcolite is a soft, colourless or white carbonate mineral with the composition of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO) also called thermokalite.

In southwest Wyoming the formation contains the world's largest deposits of trona, and in Colorado, the world's largest deposits of nahcolite.

Shell Oil won three of the leases, to test three different methods, all in Rio Blanco County, Colorado; two of the projects would also recover the sodium mineral nahcolite.

Naturally occurring deposits of nahcolite (NaHCO) are found in the Eocene-age (55.8-33.9 Mya) Green River Formation, Piceance Basin in Colorado.

The process was developed to combine the shale oil production with production of sodium bicarbonate, sodium carbonate, and aluminum from nahcolite and dawsonite, occurring in oil shales of the Piceance Basin.

It is commercially mined using in situ leach techniques involving dissolution of the nahcolite by heated water pumped through the nahcolite beds and reconstituted through a natural cooling crystallisation process.

Mineral matter in oil shale contains fine-grained silicate and carbonate minerals such as calcite, dolomite, siderite, quartz, rutile, orthoclase, albite, anorthite, muscovite, amphipole, marcasite, limonite, gypsum, nahcolite, dawsonite and alum.

The Daily Sentinel reports ( http://bit.ly/xFbleJ) Shell is preparing to do a test to address the federal government's goal of developing oil shale while also extracting, or at least protecting, commercially valuable deposits of nahcolite in the same formations.

Lowenstein and Demicco said nahcolite suggests Eocene warming was concurrent with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels of at least 1,125 parts per million, which is 3 times current CO2 levels, but not much higher than what's expected on Earth in about 100 years.

Binghamton University Professor Tim Lowenstein's concerns are rooted in his and Professor Robert Demicco's discovery of nahcolite -- a rare carbonate mineral that formed during the Eocene Epoch, the warmest period on Earth during the last 65 million years.