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At least 343 records · Page 19Linked to original sources
USGS1953

Radioactivity of some coal and shale of Pennsylvanian age in Ohio

Channel samples of the commercially important coal beds and associated rocks in the Pottsville, Allegheny, and Monogahela series of the Pennsylvanian system were collected in eastern Ohio. Equivalent uranium content of 0.001 percent or more was determined in the laboratory for five samples. The uranium content of the coal is less than the equivalent uranium content indicated by radioactivity measurements. None of the samples collected contain recoverable quantities of uranium in the ash.

Ohio↗
USGS1953

Uranium in the Poison Basin area, Carbon County, Wyoming - a preliminary report

Uranium minerals were found on October 15, 1953, about seven miles west of Baggs in the Browns Park formation of the Poison Basin area, Carbon County, Wyo. The occurrences extend over an area of at least several square miles in secs. 4 and 5, T. 12 N., R. 92 W., and secs. 32 and 33, T. 13 N., R. 92 W. Uranophane-bearing sandstones contain as much as 3.21 percent uranium in select samples. The occurrences cannot be evaluated because their dimensions and average grade have not been determined. The presence of uranium, however, is significant because it indicates that uranium deposits may be present in the Browns Park formation and also in the underlying formations unconformably overlapped by the Browns Park.

Wyoming↗
USGS1954

Carnotite-bearing sandstone in Cedar Canyon, Slim Buttes, Harding County, South Dakota

Carnotite-bearing sandstone and clay have been found in the Chadron formation of the White River group of Oligocene age in the southern part of the Slim Buttes area, Harding County, S. Dak. Locally the mineralized sandstone contains as much as 0.23 percent uranium. The uranium and vanadium ions are believed to have been derived from the overlying mildly radioactive tuffaceous rocks of the Arikaree formation of Miocene age. Analyses of water from 26 springs issuing from the Chadron and Arikaree formations along the margins of Slim Buttes show uranium contents of as much as 200 parts per billion. Meteoric water percolating through tuffaceous rocks is thought to have brought uranium and other ions into environments in the Chadron formation that were physically and chemically favorable for the deposition of carnotite.

South Dakota↗
USGS1954

Uranium occurrences in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and Hunterdon County, New Jersey

Eleven occurrences of uraniferous argillite in the Lockatong lithofacies and five occurrences of uraniferous sandstone in the Stockton lithofacies, both of Triassic age, are known in Buck County, Pa. and Hunterdon County, N.J. Most of the occurrences were discovered by the Geological Survey, though prospectors found several. The Delaware quarry, Bucks County, Pa., was mapped and sampled in detail because the best exposed and most uraniferous argillite known crops out there. Sketches of two sandstone occurrences were made. Two stratigraphic sections of part of the Stockton formation were made in an unsuccessful effort to find key beds to which the uranium occurrences might be referred. The argillite occurrences contain as much as 0.034 percent uranium but commonly contain only about 0.010 percent uranium. They are known to extend for several hundred feet along the strike and may possibly extend several thousand feet, but less than a mile. They range from about 1 to 6 feet in thickness. The sandstone occurrences are characterized by the presence of pyrite or limonite and the alteration of feldspar to clay. The most uraniferous parts of the sandstone contain mud pebbles or lenses. The sandstone with mud pellets generally contain from 0.01 to 0.03 percent uranium, but selected parts of the pellets contain as much as 0.29 percent uranium. The known occurrences are small, about 1 to 2 feet thick and 20 to 30 feet long. None of the argillite or sandstone occurrences are now of economic importance.

New Jersey;Pennsylvania↗
USGS1954

Reconnaissance for uranium in New Mexico in 1953

In the fall of 1953 a reconnaissance search for uranium was made in the Datil area, west-central New Mexico, and in the Cerrillos, Glorieta, and Tecolote districts and the Las Vegas and Colfax Sill areas in north-central and northeastern New Mexico. Traces of radioactive materials were detected at many places and occurrences of uranium minerals that may be of possible economic significance were found in the Datil area, near the village of Datil. Small amounts of uranium are widespread in sandstone beds in the Mesaverde formation. The highest-grade sample contained 0.056 percent uranium.

New Mexico↗
USGS1955

Geology of the Copper King uranium mine, Larimer County, Colorado

The Copper King mine in Larimer County, Colo., in the northern part of the Front Range of Colorado, was opened in World War I in an unsuccessful attempt to mine copper and zinc ore. In 1949, following the discovery of pitchblende on the dump, the mine was reopened, and it was worked until 1953 for uranium. A total of 652 tons of ore that contained an average of 0.28 percent U 3 O 8 was shipped. The bedrock consists predominantly of biotite granite, part of the Precamblian Log Cabin batholith, and minor metasedimentary rocks -- biotite-quartz-plagioclase gneiss, amphibole skarn, biotite schist, quartzite, amphibolite, and biotite sköls. The metasedimentary rocks occur as inclusions that trend northeast, essentially parallel to the prevailing foliation in the granite. In places the metasedimentary rocks are crosscut sharply by the granite and form angular, steep-walled blocks in the granite. Faults, confined to a narrow easterly-trending zone through the mine, cut all the Precambrian rocks. Mineral deposits of two types are present at the mines 1) sulfide-magnetite ore and 2) a uranium deposit in a filled fissure that cuts the skarn. The sulfide-magnetite deposits are small and consist of pyrite, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, pyrrhotite, and at places magnetite. Alpha-helium age determinations on ore magnetite by Hurley indicate that the mineral assemblage is late Precambrian in age. The deposits are pyrometasomatic in origin and possibly related to the granite. The uranium deposit consists of pitchblende and associated vein-forming minerals that occur in the Copper King fault and locally in pyrite boxwork adjacent to the fault. Three phases of black pitchblende have been identified -- uraninite, "coffinite", and UO 3 -rich pitchblend. Colored secondary minerals are absent. The pitchblende occurs in a steeply plunging, tabular shoot between 45 and 135 feet below the surface that has a horizontal length of about 50 feet. Within the shoot the pitchblende occurs in pods or layers generally only a few feet in height and length and as much as a foot thick that are separated by nearly barren vein. The grade of the ore within the pods ranges from 0.2 percent uranium to as much as 20 percent but averages about 1 to 2 percent. Age determinations by the Pb 206 /U 238 and Pb 207 /U 235 methods on two samples of hard pitchblende from the vein, not from the pyrite boxwork, gave ages by the two methods after suitable common lead corrections, ranging from 55 to 76 million years, corresponding to an early Tertiary age. Diamond core drilling and reconnaissance for radioactivity have not disclosed other uranium deposits the Prairie Divide region; nevertheless, it seems likely that other deposits are present.

Colorado↗
USGS1954

The stratigraphic and structural controls of the uranium deposits on Long Mountain, Fall River County, South Dakota

Numerous occurrences of uranium have been found in the Long Mountain area, Fall River County, S. Dak. Correlation diagrams prepared from drill, cores obtained from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission indicate that the uranium is most abundant in two sandstone units, separated by mudstone in the Lakota sandstone of Early Cretaceous age. The lower uraniferous unit is composed of thick beds of very fine- to fine-grained sandstone with a few interfingering lentils of mudstone. The upper uraniferous unit is composed of interfingering beds of very fine-, fine-, and coarse-grained sandstone and mudstone. The uranium deposits on Long Mountain and in the area to the west are most numerous in a northeast-trending zone about a mile wide between two normal faults. The deposits between these faults are in two groups of different trend; the northern group has been incompletely explored. The sedimentary structures of the upper and lower mineralized sandstone between the faults have controlled the deposition of uranium and vanadium.

South Dakota↗
USGS1956

Distribution of uranium in the Bisbee district, Cochise County, Arizona

The Bisbee district has been an important source of copper for many years, and substantial amounts of lead and zinc ore and minor amounts of manganese ore have been mined during certain periods. The copper deposits occur both as low-grade disseminated ore in the Sacramento Hill stock and as massive sulfide (and secondary oxide and carbonate) replacement bodies in Paleozoic limestones that are intruded by the stock and related igneous bodies. The lead-zinc production has come almost entirely from limestone replacement bodies. The disseminated ore exhibits no anomalous radioactivity, and samples from the Lavender pit contain from 0.002 to less than 0.001 percent equivalent uranium. The limestone replacement ores are distinctly radioactive and stoping areas can be readily distinguished from from unmineralized ground on the basis of radioactivity alone. The equivalent uranium content of the copper replacement ores ranges from 0.002 to 0.014 percent and averages about 0.005 percent; the lead-zinc replacement ores average more than 0.007 percent equivalent uranium. Most of the uranium in the copper ores of the district is retained in the smelter slag of a residual concentrate; the slag contains about 0.009 percent equivalent uranium. Uranium carried off each day by acid mine drainage is roughly equal to 1 percent of that being added to the slag dump. Although the total amount of uranium in the district is large, no minable concentrations of ore-grade material are known; samples of relatively high-grade material represent only small fractions of tons at any one locality.

Arizona↗
USGS1956

Preliminary study of radioactive limonite localities in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming

Nine radioactive limonite localities of different types were sampled during the spring and fall of 1953 in an effort to establish criteria for differentiating limonite outcrops associated with uranium or thorium deposits from limonite outcrops not associated with such deposits. The samples were analyzed for uranium and thorium by standard chemical methods, for equivalent uranium by the radiometric method, and for a number of common metals by semiquantitative geochemical methods. Correlation coefficients were then calculated for each of the metals with respect to equivalent uranium, and to uranium where present, for all of the samples from each locality. The correlation coefficients may indicate a significant association between uranium or thorium and certain metals. Occurrences of specific that are interpreted as significant very considerably for different uranium localities but are more consistent for the thorium localities. Samples taken from radioactive outcrops in the vicinity of uranium or thorium deposits can be quickly analyzed by geochemical methods for various elements. Correlation coefficients can then be determined for the various elements with respect to uranium or thorium; if any significant correlations are obtained, the elements showing such correlation may be indicators of uranium or thorium. Soil samples of covered areas in the vicinity of the radioactive outcrop may then be analyzed for the indicator elements and any resulting anomalies used as a guide for prospecting where the depth of overburden is too great to allow the use of radiation-detecting instruments. Correlation coefficients of the associated indicator elements, used in conjunction with petrographic evidence, may also be useful in interpreting the origin and paragenesis of radioactive deposits. Changes in color of limonite stains on the outcrop may also be a useful guide to ore in some areas.

Colorado;Utah;Wyoming↗