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| White Signal district | |||||||||||||||||||||
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The first uranium production in New Mexico was a minor amount of autunite and torbernite mined circa 1920 from former silver mines in the White Signal district, about 15 miles (24 km) southwest of Silver City in Grant County.[1]
[edit] Tags:New Mexico,Uranium,Wyoming,Autunite,Silver City,Grant County,Navajo,Paddy Martinez,San Juan Basin,Mckinley,Cibola,Chuska,Gallup,Ambrosia Lake,Laguna,Morrison Formation,Jurassic,Kerr-mcgee,Anaconda Company,Phillips Petroleum Company,Rio De Oro Uranium Mines,Kerr-mcgee Oil Industries,Anderson Development Corporation,Pacific Uranium Mines,Homestake Mining Company,Sabre-pinion Corporation,United Western Minerals Company,Patrick Jay Hurley,J H Whitney And Company,White Weld & Co.,San Jacinto Petroleum Corporation,Lisbon Uranium Corporation,Superior Oil Company,Rio Algom, | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Grants mineral belt | 2>
New Mexico was a significant uranium producer since the discovery of uranium by Navajo sheepherder Paddy Martinez in 1950. Uranium in New Mexico is almost all in the Grants mineral belt, along the south margin of the San Juan Basin in McKinley and Cibola counties, in the northwest part of the state. Stretching northwest to southeast, the mineral belt contains the Chuska, Gallup, Ambrosia Lake, and Laguna uranium mining districts.[2] Most of the uranium ore is contained in the Jackpile, Poison Canyon, and Westwater Canyon sandstone members of the Morrison Formation, and in the Todilto limestone, all of Jurassic age.[3]
"I never knew where all the crooks from East Texas went until I got into the uranium business and they all turned up again" -- Dean McGee, of Kerr-McGee, quoted in Secret Riches by John Masters[4]
Several different companies moved into the region in the 1950s, particularly oil companies. They included Anaconda Company, Phillips Petroleum Company, Rio de Oro Uranium Mines, Inc, Kermac Nuclear Fuels Corporation (a cooperative of Kerr-McGee Oil Industries, Anderson Development Corporation, and Pacific Uranium Mines, Inc), Homestake Mining Company, Sabre-Pinion Corporation, United Western Minerals Company (of General Patrick Jay Hurley), J H Whitney and Company, White Weld & Co., San Jacinto Petroleum Corporation, Lisbon Uranium Corporation, and Superior Oil Company.[5][6][7][8]
[edit] | Tags: Current activity | 2>
Active uranium mining stopped in New Mexico in 1998, although Rio Algom continued to recover uranium dissolved in water from its flooded underground mine workings at Ambrosia Lake until 2002.[9] No uranium mining is taking place, even though the state has second-largest known uranium ore reserves in the U.S.
General Atomics subsidiary Rio Grande Resources is currently evaluating its Mt. Taylor Mine for development by in-situ leaching. Uranium is present in coffinite in the Westwater Canyon member of the Morrison Formation at 3,000 feet (900 m) below ground surface. The mine, which operated as an underground uranium mine from 1986 to 1989, has a remaining resource estimated by its owner at more than 45 thousand tonnes of uranium oxide.[1]
Strathmore Minerals Corp. is currently applying for permits to mine their Church Rock and Roca Honda properties in the Grants Mineral Belt.[2] Neutron Energy and URI also reportedly plan to start uranium mining in the Grants belt.[3]
[edit] | Tags: Health and environmental issues | 2>
See also: Church Rock uranium mill spill
New Mexico uranium miners from the 1940s and 1950s have had abnormally high rates of lung cancer, from radon gas in poorly ventilated underground mines. The effect was particularly pronounced among Navajo miners, because the incidence of lung cancer is normally low among Navajos. The Navajo tribe, whose reservation contains much of the known ore deposits, declared a moratorium on uranium mining in 2005.[10]
In May 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would join the Navajo Nation EPA in cleaning up radioactive contamination near the Church Rock mine.[4]
[edit] | Tags: Cited references | 2>
^ T.G. Lovering (1956) Radioactive Deposits of New Mexico, US Geological Survey, Bulletin 1009-L, p.329.
^ Douglas G. Brookins (1977) Uranium deposits of the Grants mineral belt: geochemical constraints on origin, in Exploration Frontiers of the Central and Southern Rockies, Denver: Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists, p.337-352.
^ H.C. Granger and others, "Sandstone-type uranium deposits at Ambrosia Lake, New Mexico-an interim report," Economic Geology, Nov. 1961, p.1179-1210.
^ John Masters (2004). Secret Riches: Adventures of an Unreformed Oilman. Gondolier Press. ISBN 1-896209-97-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=E1P8SFsz_A4C. page 69
^ "Atomic Energy: Uranium Jackpot". time. 1957 9 30. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,891393,00.html. Retrieved 2009 10 7. (lists many companies)
^ O'Dell, Larry. "Nuclear Power". Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society / Oklahoma State University. http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/N/NU001.html. Retrieved 2009 10 2. (re: Kermac)
^ "Shiprock Mill Site". Energy Information Administration. 2005 10 9. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/umtra/shiprock_title1.html. Retrieved 2009 10 2. (re: Kermac)
^ V. McLemore (2007 Feb). "Uranium Mining Resources in New Mexico". SME Annual Meeting. http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/staff/mclemore/documents/07-111_18.pdf. Retrieved 2009 10 3. (re: Kermac)
^ S.A. Lucas Kamat, "New Mexico," Mining Engineering, May 2006, p.107.
^ S.A. Lucas Kamat, "New Mexico," Mining Engineering, May 2007, p.103.
[edit] | Tags: See also | 2>
Uranium mining in the United States
The Navajo People and Uranium Mining
Anaconda, New Mexico
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Uranium_mining_in_New_Mexico&oldid=490886873"
Categories: Geology of New MexicoUranium mining in the United StatesMining in New Mexico
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