Everything about Uranium Mining In New Mexico totally explained
Uranium mining in New Mexico, a state of the United States, was a significant industry from the early 1950s until the early 1980s. Although
New Mexico has the second largest identified
uranium ore reserves of any state in the US (after
Wyoming), no uranium ore has been mined in New Mexico since 1998.
White Signal district
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 southwest of
Silver City in
Grant County.
Grants mineral belt
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. 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.
Current activity
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. 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.
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Strathmore Minerals Corp. is currently applying for permits to mine their Church Rock and Roca Honda properties in the Grants Mineral Belt.
(External Link) Neutron Energy and URI also reportedly plan to start uranium mining in the Grants belt.
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Health and environmental issues
New Mexico uranium miners from the 1940s and 1950s have had abnormally high rates of lung cancer. 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. In May 2007, the
US EPA announced that it would join the Navajo Nation EPA in cleaning up radioactive contamination near the Church Rock mine.
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Cited references
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