Larry Zanko, Sr. Research Fellow

Position and Focus

Larry Zanko is a Senior Research Fellow for the Economic Geology Program within the Minerals Division of the Center for Applied Research and Technology Development. He is a geological mining engineer and has been with NRRI since 1988. He has worked on a variety of research projects related to industrial, ferrous and nonferrous minerals. Areas of particular focus have included aggregates, biogeochemistry, geological data compilation, geostatistics, geological resource/mine modeling, environmental remediation, kaolin and ball clay evaluations, mining economics/tax comparisons and mineral waste characterization/utilization projects.

Background

M.S. Geological Engineering, University of Minnesota Minneapolis, 1995
B.S. Geological Engineering, University of Minnesota Minneapolis, 1986
B.S. Microbiology, University of Minnesota St. Paul, 1986

Project list for Lawrence Zanko :

(A link will go to the project's current report, an arrow will take you to a project's home page)

Erie Pier Dredged Material Beneficial Use Study
(1) Identify landowners willing to participate in demonstration projects and receive fine grained dredged material for restoration demonstrations. (2) Evaluate the cost and feasibility of using rail transportation to move Erie Pier fine grained dredged material to potential recipient sites. (3) Provide monitoring and results analysis of vegetative health, plant diversity and control of purple loosestrife for demonstration sites. (4) Evaluate the effectiveness of using microwave technology to sterilize seeds contained in Erie Pier fine grained dredged material. (5) Conduct a laboratory and field assessment of the stamp sand area near Gay, Michigan, within the context of this location being a potential recipient site for navigation channel material from the Duluth-Superior harbor and/or Erie Pier for establishing stamp sand-stabilizing vegetative cover.

Development of Engineered Tiles with Radiation Absorbing Properties from Taconite Raw Materials
To determine the feasibility of producing architectural quality tiles with unique engineering attributes from taconite iron ore raw materials. The tiles will be produced through high temperature melting in a plasma melting system provided by MetalRecovry, sited at the Coleraine Minerals Research Laboratory (CMRL), and tile formation and annealing in other equipment at the same site, also provided by MetalRecovry.