[89], In February 2010, the Commonwealth of Virginia contracted the National Research Council and Virginia Polytechnic Institute to oversee a National Research Council study of potential environmental and economic effects of uranium mining in Virginia. NMBGMR Resource Maps
New Mexico has the second largest identified uranium ore reserves of any state after Wyoming, but no uranium ore has been mined in New Mexico since 1998.
Scale:
** The mine central point is based on an average of the mine's bounding box(es) and does not necessarily fall on the claim itself. [98], Western Nuclear discovered the Spokane Mountain uranium deposit in 1975, two miles (3 km) northeast of the Midnite Mine, and in a similar geologic setting. During the period 1948 through 1976, 15,589,100 tons of ore with an average grade of 0.23% U/sub 3/O/sub 8/ and containing 71,132,400 pounds of uranium oxide (U/sub 3/O/sub 8/) have been produced from western Colorado. [117][19] In 2008 the US Congress authorized a five-year, multi-agency cleanup of uranium contamination on the Navajo Nation reservation; identification and treatment of contaminated water and structures has been the first priority. According to the US
By 2020, the only active uranium mine in Wyoming was the Smith Ranch-Highland in-situ leaching operation in the Powder River Basin, owned by Cameco. Renewed
[56], An airborne gamma radiation survey flown by the US Atomic Energy Commission in 1954 discovered high radiation readings over the Cave Hills area in Harding County, in the northwest corner of the state. Fluviatile Channel Sandstone And Carbonaceous Material (Humate), Grants Uranium-Ambrosia Lake Mining District. The average uranium content is 0.009%, which is considered to be low grade. Uranium loaded resins from that ion exchange facility are processed into yellowcake at the company's Hobson processing plant. Accessory minerals are primarily hematite and calcite, with lesser amounts of fluorite, pyrite, galena, quartz, and rare earth minerals.
In late 2006, Denison Mines reopened the Pandora mine in the La Sal mining district, Utah's first producing uranium mine since 1991. Basics of Nuclear Energy. The uranium is contained in the phosphate minerals francolite, crandallite, millisite, wavellite, and vivianite, found in Miocene and Pliocene sediments of the Bone Valley Formation. The data are dynamic and may change over time. Virginia Commission on Coal and Energy (6 November 2008): http://dels.nas.edu/Report/Uranium-Mining-Virginia-Scientific-Technical/13266. UPPER LEVEL AT DEPTH OF 3100 FEET IS THE ORE (STOPING) LEVEL, HAULAGE LEVEL IS AT A DEPTH OF 3200 FEET AND A DRAINAGE-EXHAUST LEVEL IS LOCATED ABOUT 15 FEET BELOW HAULAGE LEVEL. The discovered ore reserves and the undiscovered potential resources of the state are expected to maintain New Mexico's position as the nation's principal source of uranium for years to come. Although uranium occurs in several formations and rock types within the area, the most important uranium deposits are contained in sandstone facies of the sequence, where geochemical and sedimentological conditions were most suitable for concentration of uranium. Uranium has been produced as a byproduct of phosphate mining and the production of phosphoric acid fertilizer. [2] Until the early 1980s, there were active uranium mines in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. Government publication, State or province government publication. The National Research Council study, funded indirectly by a $1.4 million grant from Virginia Uranium to the Commonwealth, resulted in a report released in December 2011. controlled by the special distribution and association of sedimentary depositional environments operative during past geologic periods in the basin and on the Colorado Plateau. A cluster of deposits in Mesa, Montrose, and San Miguel Counties comprises the Colorado segment of the Uravan mineral belt, the largest uranium area in Colorado. [106], In 1950, the US Public Health service began a comprehensive study of uranium miners, leading to the first publication of a statistical correlation between cancer and uranium mining, released in 1962.