"where it is found in large quantities associated with silver. It also occurs in Australia, the Czech Republic, Germany, England, Rwanda, Namibia and South Africa. In the United States, it can be found in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina and Wyoming. The geologist Charles Steen made a fortune on the production of uraninite in his Mi Vida mine in Moab, Utah. Uranium ore is generally processed close to the mine into yellowcake, which is an intermediate step in the processing of uranium. Uraninite Uraninite, formerly pitchblende, is a radioactive, uranium-rich mineral and"
"Gilbert LaBine discovered pitchblende, a major uranium bearing mineral, on the shores of the Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories. This discovery led Labine's company, Eldorado Gold Mines Limited, to develop the Eldorado Mine at Port Radium, Northwest Territories in 1932 and a refinery to extract Radium from the ore in Port Hope, Ontario, the following year. During World War II, the demand for uranium exploded as the United States and their allies, Britain and Canada, began the Manhattan Project to produce the first atomic weapons. As a result, in 1943 the Government of Canada expropriated the assets of"
"more powerful fusion weapons known as ""hydrogen bombs"". In the first decades of the 20th century, physics was revolutionised with developments in the understanding of the nature of atoms. In 1898, Pierre and Marie Curie discovered that pitchblende, an ore of uranium, contained a substance—which they named radium—that emitted large amounts of radioactivity. Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy identified that atoms were breaking down and turning into different elements. Hopes were raised among scientists and laymen that the elements around us could contain tremendous amounts of unseen energy, waiting to be harnessed. H. G. Wells was inspired to write about"
"with the extraction of pitchblende (uraninite) for uranium production by the Wismut mining company in the Ore Mountains in the former East Germany between 1946 and 1991. These activities contributed significantly to the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal. The radiation emitted by pitchblende exposes photosensitive paper when placed in direct contact with it. Kriemann has taken advantage of this quality to create a series of autoradiographs in which the mineral itself becomes a kind of ""camera."" A spin-off from that project is ""Falsche Kamille, Wilde Möhre, Bitterkraut"" (2016). The title lists three plants (false chamomile, wild carrot, ox tongue) that can"
"fg/kg respectively), produced by the spontaneous fission of uranium-238. Francium can also be found in uraninite at 1 francium atom for every 1 × 10 uranium atoms in the ore as a result from the decay of actinium. Uraninite is a major ore of uranium. Some of the highest grade uranium ores in the world were found in the Shinkolobwe mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the initial source for the Manhattan Project) and in the Athabasca Basin in northern Saskatchewan, Canada. Another important source of pitchblende is at Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada,"
"Survey of Canada noted evidences of iron, copper, uranium and cobalt in the vicinity of Echo Bay. Thirty years later, on May 16, 1930, prospector Gilbert LaBine discovered high-grade pitchblende and silver at this site. His company was then known as Eldorado Gold Mines Limited (later renamed Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited). Eldorado started off as a radium mine in 1932, extracting radium from pitchblende. Radium ores were highly valued at the time because the price of radium salts, used in cancer treatment and then monopolized by Belgium, was US$70,000 per gram. The first concentration plant was a big erection"
"5% of iron oxide, is gray to white in color, and named edenite, from its locality in Edenville, Orange County, New York. Other minerals in the hornblende series include: The word hornblende is derived from the German ""horn"" and ""blenden"", to 'deceive' in allusion to its similarity in appearance to metal-bearing ore minerals. Hornblende Hornblende is a complex inosilicate series of minerals (ferrohornblende – magnesiohornblende). It is not a recognized mineral in its own right, but the name is used as a general or field term, to refer to a dark amphibole. Hornblende is an isomorphous mixture of three molecules;"
"Hornblende Hornblende is a complex inosilicate series of minerals (ferrohornblende – magnesiohornblende). It is not a recognized mineral in its own right, but the name is used as a general or field term, to refer to a dark amphibole. Hornblende is an isomorphous mixture of three molecules; a calcium-iron-magnesium silicate, an aluminium-iron-magnesium silicate, and an iron-magnesium silicate. The general formula can be given as (Ca,Na)(Mg,Fe,Al)(Al,Si)O(OH,F). Some metals vary in their occurrence and magnitude: Hornblende has a hardness of 5–6, a specific gravity of 2.9–3.4 and is typically an opaque green, greenish-brown, brown or black color. Its cleavage angles are at"
"what Curie recorded in a sentence of her paper, describing how much greater were the activities of pitchblende and chalcolite than uranium itself: ""The fact is very remarkable, and leads to the belief that these minerals may contain an element which is much more active than uranium."" She later would recall how she felt ""a passionate desire to verify this hypothesis as rapidly as possible."" On 14 April 1898, the Curies optimistically weighed out a 100-gram sample of pitchblende and ground it with a pestle and mortar. They did not realize at the time that what they were searching for"
"element among the fractions that resulted. Working with the mineral pitchblende, the pair discovered a new radioactive element in 1898. They named the element polonium, after Marie's native country of Poland. On December 21, 1898, the Curies detected the presence of another radioactive material in the pitchblende. They presented this finding to the French Academy of Sciences on December 26, proposing that the new element be called radium. The Curies then went to work isolating polonium and radium from naturally occurring compounds to prove that they were new elements. In 1902, the Curies announced that they had produced a decigram"
"on their continued unprotected work with radioactive substances. The School did not sponsor her research, but she would receive subsidies from metallurgical and mining companies and from various organizations and governments. Curie's systematic studies included two uranium minerals, pitchblende and torbernite (also known as chalcolite). Her electrometer showed that pitchblende was four times as active as uranium itself, and chalcolite twice as active. She concluded that, if her earlier results relating the quantity of uranium to its activity were correct, then these two minerals must contain small quantities of another substance that was far more active than uranium. She began"
"and the Mammoth mine, Tiger, Pinal County, Arizona. Crystals of phosgenite, and also of the corresponding bromine compound PbBrCO, have been prepared artificially. Phosgenite Phosgenite is a rare mineral consisting of lead chlorocarbonate, (PbCl)CO. The tetragonal crystals are prismatic or tabular in habit: they are usually colorless and transparent, and have a brilliant adamantine lustre. Sometimes the crystals have a curious helical twist about the tetrad or principal axis. The hardness is 3 and the specific gravity 6.3. The mineral is rather sectile, and consequently was earlier known as corneous lead, (German ""Hornblei""). The name phosgenite was given by August"
"and Pierre Curie discovered that a sample of pitchblende was emitting four times as much radioactivity as could be explained by the presence of uranium alone. The Curies gathered several tons of pitchblende and refined it for several months until they had a pure sample of polonium. The discovery officially took place in 1898. Prior to the invention of particle accelerators, the only way to create polonium was to extract it over several months from uranium ore. The first attempt at creating livermorium was from 1976 to 1977 at the LBNL, who bombarded curium-248 with calcium-48, but were not successful."
"to do so himself. Bill identifies iron crystal contamination, much to Thorkel's satisfaction. Then, to their astonishment, Thorkel thanks them for their services and wants them to leave. Insulted that they have traveled thousands of miles for nothing, they set up camp in Thorkel's stockade, insisting that he tell them more about his research. While snooping around, Steve discovers the area is rich with pitchblende, an ore of uranium and radium. When he finds them looking around his laboratory, Thorkel becomes angry, but as he is outnumbered, reveals he is shrinking living creatures, among them a horse, using radiation piped"
"doubt, the Curies sought to isolate polonium and radium in pure form. Pitchblende is a complex mineral; the chemical separation of its constituents was an arduous task. The discovery of polonium had been relatively easy; chemically it resembles the element bismuth, and polonium was the only bismuth-like substance in the ore. Radium, however, was more elusive; it is closely related chemically to barium, and pitchblende contains both elements. By 1898 the Curies had obtained traces of radium, but appreciable quantities, uncontaminated with barium, were still beyond reach. The Curies undertook the arduous task of separating out radium salt by differential"
"mineralised veins. There are three major vein types carrying uranium: uranium-quartz-calcite veins (270 million years old), dolomite-uranium veins (Triassic age) and BiCoNi-Ag-U veins (Tertiary age). Only the first type is a primary mineralisation, while the latter two carry remobilised pitchblende from the older vein types. The BiCoNi-Ag-U mineralisation had been mined since the 15th century for its content of silver, bismuth, cobalt and nickel. The heavy black mineral often occurring in these veins was useless to the miners of former times and was named 'Pechblende' (pitchblende) because of its color. This word is still used for the most important uranium"
"to about 1916. The uranium boom of the late 1940s revived the search for uranium orebodies in the gold and silver mines of the Front Range. Again, uranium was produced from a number of mines, but the orebodies were small and discontinuous. Pitchblende was discovered in 1948 in the Caribou silver mine at the town of Caribou, Boulder County. A small amount of uranium ore was produced. In 1949 janitor and weekend prospector Fred Schwartzwalder discovered uranium at an abandoned copper prospect in Jefferson County about ten miles northeast of Central City and eight miles north of Golden. The deposit"
"of ores associated with the intrusion gave the area its name (Erzgebirge, literally ""ore mountains""). Due to the productiveness of its ore deposits, the Greifensteine are also a well-known site of many different minerals and their varieties. As of 2014, a total of around 50 minerals and 10 varieties have been discovered here, including ""inter alia"" the well-known minerals andalusite, beryl, gypsum, haematite, muscovite, sphalerite, pyrite, topaz, wavellite and zircon, as well as various garnets, tourmalines, (dravite, elbaite, schorl) and wolframites. There are also rare minerals such as childrenite and natrodufrénite, as well as the radioactive minerals autunite and torbernite."
"recomposed from pyroxenes as a result of crystallizing igneous rocks as well as during metamorphism (Léger and Ferry, 1991). Because of this important quality, P-T conditions have repeatedly been calculated for the crystallization of hornblendes in calc-alkaline magmas (Féménias et al., 2006). In addition to studying tschermakitic content in its natural occurrences, geologists have frequently synthesized this mineral in order to further calculate its place as an endmember hornblende. Tschermakite received its name in honor of the Austrian mineralogist Professor Gustav Tschermak von Seysenegg (1836-1927) whose mineral textbook Lehrbuch der Mineralogie (orig. pub.1883) was described as the German language equivalent"
"56 and 124 degrees. It is most often confused with various pyroxene minerals and biotite mica, which are black and can be found in granite and in charnockite. Hornblende is a common constituent of many igneous and metamorphic rocks such as granite, syenite, diorite, gabbro, basalt, andesite, gneiss, and schist. It is the principal mineral of amphibolites. Very dark brown to black hornblendes that contain titanium are ordinarily called basaltic hornblende, from the fact that they are usually a constituent of basalt and related rocks. Hornblende alters easily to chlorite and epidote. A rare variety of hornblende contains less than"
"Tyuyamunite Tyuyamunite (pronounced tuh-YOO-ya-moon-ite) is a very rare uranium mineral with formula Ca(UO)VO·(5-8)HO. It is a member of the carnotite group. It is a bright, canary-yellow color because of its high uranium content. Also, because of tyuyamunite's high uranium content, it is radioactive. It was named by Konstantin Avtonomovich Nenadkevich, in 1912, after its type locality, Tyuya-Muyun, Fergana Valley, Kyrgyzstan. Tyuyamunite is formed by the weathering of uraninite, a uranium-bearing mineral. Tyuyamunite, being a hydrous mineral, contains water. Yet when it is exposed to the atmosphere it loses its water. This process changes tyuyamunite into a different mineral known as"
"named after him. In Sri Lanka the mineral specimens occur as detrital pebbles. In the Tombstone Mountains of Yukon, Canada, the mineral is found in a syenitic glacial erratic boulder. In the Alban Hills of Italy it is found in volcanic ejecta. Ekanite Ekanite is an uncommon silicate mineral with chemical formula: CaThSiO or (Ca,Fe,Pb)(Th,U)SiO. It is a member of the steacyite group. It is among the few gemstones that are naturally radioactive. Most ekanite is mined in Sri Lanka, although deposits also occur in Russia and North America. Clear and well-colored stones are rare as the radioactivity tends to"
"uranium isotopes; since thorium and uranium have very long half-lives, these daughters are continually being regenerated by their decay. Of these four isotopes, the longest-lived is Ra (half-life 1600 years), a decay product of natural uranium. Because of its relative longevity, Ra is the most common isotope of the element, making up about one part per trillion of the Earth's crust; essentially all natural radium is Ra. Thus, radium is found in tiny quantities in the uranium ore uraninite and various other uranium minerals, and in even tinier quantities in thorium minerals. One ton of pitchblende typically yields about one"
"Phosgenite Phosgenite is a rare mineral consisting of lead chlorocarbonate, (PbCl)CO. The tetragonal crystals are prismatic or tabular in habit: they are usually colorless and transparent, and have a brilliant adamantine lustre. Sometimes the crystals have a curious helical twist about the tetrad or principal axis. The hardness is 3 and the specific gravity 6.3. The mineral is rather sectile, and consequently was earlier known as corneous lead, (German ""Hornblei""). The name phosgenite was given by August Breithaupt in 1820, from phosgene, carbon oxychloride, because the mineral contains the elements carbon, oxygen and chlorine. It was found associated with anglesite"
"""ferric dravite"". However later investigations yielded a new empirical formula which had no relation to the dravite. This called for renaming, and the new name, after Pavel Povondra, a mineralogist at the Charles University in Prague, was approved by the International Mineralogical Association. Povondraite Povondraite is a rare silicate mineral from the tourmaline group with formula: NaFe(Fe,Mg)(BO)SiO(OH)O. It is a dark brown to black nearly opaque mineral with a resinous to splendent luster. It crystallizes in the trigonal crystal system as equant, distorted prisms with trigonal pyramid terminations. It occurs as rare fracture and cavity encrustations within schists derived from"
"Uranpyrochlore (of Hogarth 1977) Uranpyrochlore (ellsworthite) (Ca,U)(Ti,Nb,Ta)O(OH) is a rare earth mineral mostly found in the northern parts of North America. It is named after Hardy V. Ellsworth of the Canadian Geological Survey by Walker and Parsons. Ellsworthite is also known under the name {Betafite}. It is a very and rich mineral, which in fact makes it slightly radioactive. makes up about 17.1% of the mineral. Ellsworthite is part of pyrochlore super group and the sub group betafite and was named after the Canadian Mineralogist and surveyor H. V. Ellsworth. Ellsworthite is also known as the mineral Betafite. Ellsworthite is"
"ends with an isotope of lead or bismuth. Bismuth itself decays to thallium, but the decay is so slow as to be practically negligible. In many cases, individual members of the decay chain are as radioactive as the parent, but far smaller in volume/mass. Thus, although uranium is not dangerously radioactive when pure, some pieces of naturally occurring pitchblende are quite dangerous owing to their radium-226 content, which is soluble and not a ceramic like the parent. Similarly, thorium gas mantles are very slightly radioactive when new, but become more radioactive after only a few months of storage as the"
"Neptunium Neptunium is a chemical element with symbol Np and atomic number 93. A radioactive actinide metal, neptunium is the first transuranic element. Its position in the periodic table just after uranium, named after the planet Uranus, led to it being named after Neptune, the next planet beyond Uranus. A neptunium atom has 93 protons and 93 electrons, of which seven are valence electrons. Neptunium metal is silvery and tarnishes when exposed to air. The element occurs in three allotropic forms and it normally exhibits five oxidation states, ranging from +3 to +7. It is radioactive, poisonous, pyrophoric, and can"
"resulting from exceptionally bulky ligands such as the tricoordinate [Pr{N(SiMe)}]. There are also a few mixed oxides and fluorides involving praseodymium(IV), but it does not have an appreciable coordination chemistry in this oxidation state like its neighbour cerium. In 1751, the Swedish mineralogist Axel Fredrik Cronstedt discovered a heavy mineral from the mine at Bastnäs, later named cerite. Thirty years later, the fifteen-year-old Vilhelm Hisinger, from the family owning the mine, sent a sample of it to Carl Scheele, who did not find any new elements within. In 1803, after Hisinger had become an ironmaster, he returned to the mineral"
"proof of the element's existence, but allows them to use a dilapidated old shed across the courtyard from the physics building. In spite of its disadvantages, they import eight tons of pitchblende ore and cook it down to look for the element they call radium. In spite of inability to separate out pure radium, they know something is definitely there, as Marie's hands are being burned. They hit on a tedious method of crystallization to arrive at pure radium. Now world-famous, they go on vacation to rest after all the press conferences and the Nobel Prize. They're granted a new"
"belt. 'Uranium occurs as a pitchblende and uraninite in a wide variety of deposits in granites and pegmatites, as disseminations in quartzites, as veins and disseminations in argillites and tuffaceous units, in shear zones and faults, and in granulites'. Uranium mineralization was first discovered in Labrador's Central Mineral Belt (CMB) in 1954, south of Makkovik at the Pitch Lake showing. For over 25 years, this area of Labrador became an area of intense exploration which led to the discovery of several deposits in areas such as Kitts, and Michelin and Moran Lake, among smaller localities As these areas neared commercial"
"Columbite Columbite, also called niobite, niobite-tantalite and columbate [(Fe, Mn)NbO], is a black mineral group that is an ore of niobium. It has a submetallic luster and a high density and is a niobate of iron and manganese. This mineral group was first found in Haddam, Connecticut, in the United States. It forms a series with the tantalum-dominant analogue ferrotantalite and one with the manganese-dominant analogue manganocolumbite. The iron-rich member of the columbite group is ferrocolumbite. Some tin and tungsten may be present in the mineral. Yttrocolumbite is the yttrium-rich columbite with the formula (Y,U,Fe)(Nb,Ta)O. It is a radioactive mineral"
"Povondraite Povondraite is a rare silicate mineral from the tourmaline group with formula: NaFe(Fe,Mg)(BO)SiO(OH)O. It is a dark brown to black nearly opaque mineral with a resinous to splendent luster. It crystallizes in the trigonal crystal system as equant, distorted prisms with trigonal pyramid terminations. It occurs as rare fracture and cavity encrustations within schists derived from sedimentary rocks. Associated minerals include quartz, potassium feldspar, muscovite, schorl, riebeckite and magnesite. Discovered at the San Francisco mine, near Villa Tunari (in Alto Chapare), Bolivia, in 1976, originally it was called ferridravite, for the composition and the assumed relationship to dravite, i.e.,"