[COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES URANIUM MINING AND PROSPECTING]

[Music] [Applause] [Music] From the colleges and universities of the nation, CBS television brings you the search. The search to know and understand man and his word. The search for a richer, happier life for all. [Music] This is the age of the atom. Atomic power for destruction or atoms for peace. For a world of plenty, a new era in man's well-being. Wiping a planet off the face of a universe or saving a human life. Atomic energy, the greatest new force in the history of mankind, for evil or for good. The key to it all, uranium. And here is the source. the richest uranium bearing fields in the United States, the desolate mountain land of the Colorado Plateau. I'm Charles Roman. With the help of the Colorado School of Mines, we're going prospecting. We're joining the great gold rush of our century, the search for uranium. A rush that began here in 1946 and hasn't yet reached its peak. This is Paul Keating, associate professor of geology of the Colorado School of Mines, a pioneer in the Colorado Plateau uranium fields. Professor Keading, uh, everyone's talking about atomic energy, radioactivity, uranium. What is this wonder metal? Uranium is a hard, extremely heavy metallic uh, element. It's a source of our atomic energy, radioactivity. Look at that wall from the mesa down to the bottom of the canyon. You're looking there at over 300 million years of rock formation. The top level of that messa about 300 ft thick is called the Morrison Formation. That's where we find most of the carnetite, the uranium bearing ore in this part of the plateau. By the way, probably the first users of carnetite, the uranium ore down here were the ute and Navajo Indians. They used that bright yellow powder for war paint. The second level down that bulges out, that is the entrada, sometimes called the slick rock. The next platey layer underneath that entrada is called the Navajo. And under that the sheer wall that drops about 500 feet vertically is called the windgate. Then there are three more levels of different formations before you get down to the bottom layer, the red beds down in the bottom of the valley. 300 million years of rock formation in that wall. We have a lot to learn about it. to learn what is in those beds and what to do about it when we get get it out. Now, say that I would like to go and search for some carnetite or uh how would I get started? Well, I'd recommend you go on some prospecting on your very own. You might get some pretty hot tips from Everair who is working on that rim over there. I understand you staked a lot of claims up here. Uh, how did you discover the possibilities of uranium up here on this messa? I've been mining for a good many years. I've been prospecting here in my spare time or when I'm out of a job. One day as I was coming out of Eurovan, I was looking up at Davis Mesa and wondering if there's any claims up there that hadn't been taken yet. And so I decided to go up and have a look around. I figured I'd have to cross the river and I did. When I got to the wall of the mesa, I scaled it 700 ft straight up. When I got to the top, I found myself standing right here, but I wanted to be over there. But after I got here, I decided to look around and I found uranium sticking out of the out of the rim right here. What'd you do? Did you stake some claims here? Yeah, I st three. The prospector, the hummingbird, and the bumblebee. Well, tell me, how do you go about staking out a claim? Well, come right over here and I'll show you. Come on, Jackson. Size of a claim is 600 by,500 ft. All you do is get you a piece of paper or cardboard and uh write on it like this. This represents one of my claims. And then you get your location notice, make it out, take it over to Mont take it over and have it recorded. Well, how do you go about filing a claim? If you're over at Mont Rose, why don't you go in the courthouse and see? I'll return the carpet to you as soon as it's recorded. Excuse me. Are you Ira Foster, the county claim recorder? That's right. Well, I'd like to ask you a question. What do you do with a claim certificate when a prospector brings it in for filing? The stamps, photo it, enter it into the reception book, and return the copy to the prospector. Now, have you ever had a case of more than one person claiming the same piece of property? It often happens, but the first claim is protected and has the mineral rights. If a prospector is not sure that the claim has been taken, he is wise to file his application rather than wait for it might be too late. Well, now about how many claims have been staked here in Montrose County? Cometh me. These three books represent the locations from 1940 to 1953. 13 years since the uranium rush. These books represent the location for the last seven months. You mean in 7 months time all these books were filled as compared with these three for 13 years? Yes. There are less than 300 operating minds in the Colorado plateau. Nobody knows how many mines will be worth anything. There are thousand misses but few of them pay off. One of the best operating properties in the whole Colorado Plateau is owned by Vernon Pik of Grand Junction. Mr. Pik, uh, you started out as an amateur prospector, then you struck it rich, and, uh, now you run your own mining operation. That sounds pretty glamorous to me. And I'd like to know, uh, how did you decide to become a prospector? Well, it all started back in Minnesota when my electrical business burned down and I didn't have enough insurance uh to uh start again. Uh my wife and I decided we would uh buy a house trailer and take a vacation. We intended to go to Mexico, but we got stuck here in Grand Junction. I had caught the uranium bug and I went down to the Atomic Energy Mission to see if I could find out where to go prospecting. I talked to the guard at the gate. He told me that uh he would send me in to see Dr. Razer. He said that uh I was taking a very long shot and uh but uh if he were going prospecting, he uh said, "I'd go over here." And he picked a pencil off his desk and walked over to a map on the wall, map of Utah, and drew a circle around a small area. And uh what did you do? Did you go there? Yes, I did. Or at least I got very close to it. I uh went home, bought some camp equipment, and uh filled up some water cans because I'd been told how rugged the country was. And after packing all of that in my panel truck, I drove to Hanksville, Utah, which was near this area. It must have been pretty rough going out in that country. Yes, it was. The country has been eroded until there are great deep g canyons and washes throughout the area that make all of your walking through the country seem uphill. Uh, I can remember one time when I had worked my way up a river. It was a very small stream, but I had wet and dried my feet many times in foring it and it blistered them badly and I thought the ideal way to get out of it would be to float down the river in a raft. I'd spent about 5 days getting in there and on my blistered feet it would have been a problem getting out. So, I built a raft of an old driftwood log uh tying it together with uh strings and belts and my shoelaces. It tipped over before I'd gone very far and I lost most of my equip equipment including my groceries. All I had left the remaining 5 days was oatmeal and dried milk. What did you think about most of the time? Two things were uppermost in my mind. Uh I thought there must be an easier way to do this and I wanted to find some more. I had an idea that maybe I could find something like $50,000 worth and mine it myself. Uh now I find myself mining that much a month and it's almost unbelievable. Is this rock here an example of the kind of thing you were looking for? Yes. Uh this is what I was looking for. But it took me uh 9 months of travel through the rough and broken country of southern southern Utah before I found it. And when I did, it was right in the circle that Dr. Razer had drawn on the map for me. It is a very high-grade piece of uranium oxide, one of the largest and highest grade that has ever been taken from the plateau. When you made your big stake, how did you go about getting into operation? The first thing I needed was money, and I finally managed to raise about $3,500 from a local bank to finance the start of operations. Uh some people have uh used different methods. Some sell their claims, some lease them, and some raise the money by the sale of stock. The turnover has been as high as $7 million a day. You'll find all kinds of people are speculating, housewives, doctors, businessmen, bankers, teachers, cab drivers. I'm afraid too many people are expecting a quick and easy dollar. Investors should check with the experts before putting their money into uranium stocks. It takes an expert engineering consultant to read an engineer's report and judge whether or not the uh deposit has any real value. Even before I started mining, I uh consulted experts. I sent a sample of ore out to be identified and assayed. Where is that done? It can be done at the atomic energy commission here at Grand Junction or there are private assayers who will do that job. The Colorado School of Mines uh laboratory has placed to do that. Mr. JH Hineki of the research foundation staff there can tell you about the prospector service. The school of mine's prospector service is a feature supported by the state which is a minerals identification service. Well, we get up to as many as 100 samples a week here. Of course, the big rush comes off in the summer when the vacationers mix a little prospecting with their fishing and camping. This is a day's take here. You can see they pack their samples in almost anything available. Old overalls, pillow slips, rags, gunny sacks, tackle boxes. Ship them into us. You identify and you assay. Now, what's the difference? Well, when we identify, we determine what the major minerals or metals present in the rock are. When we essay, normally a chemical analysis is necessary to determine the exact amounts of the metal or mineral present. Before the identification of a uranium bearing mineral can finally be affected frequently in addition to the geiger counter, we must rely on a spectroscope, petrographic microscope or ultraviolet light. Well, now I I know that everybody in the world has heard of a geer counter, but what actually does it do? Well, this is a laboratory model geiger counter. The small one is a portable model such as you see in the field. Radioactive particles on entering the tube cause a brief brief pulse of electric current to flow. This pulse is registered in the counter and you hear it as clicks. The number of clicks per minute is a measure of the sample's radioactivity. Well, now these two counters are clicking and uh there's no ore near them. Why is that? Well, that's a thing that fools a lot of amateurs out prospecting with a geer counter. That clicking noise you hear is what is called the background count. It results from stray radiation, cosmic radiation, or mass effect. Actually, it's not the uranium itself that does the counting, but radioactive daughter products such as radium. These are registered. And in order to determine the count of a sample, we must first find out what the background count is and subtract it. Then I take a sample such as this one. I put it under the counter. Listen, that appears to be a sample of good radioactivity. But sometimes we must go a step further. We occasionally get samples with a high radioactive count that upon chemical assaying are found to contain only very little uranium. So you see that the old adage all that glitters is not gold applies also to uranium. So u gold has its fool's gold and uranium has its fool's uranium. Is that right? That is right. Well now after the identification uh what happens then? Well, you remember that in essay work, we determine the quantities of the metal or mineral present in the sample. And in identification work, we determine the different minerals that are present. We fill out an identification report and send it to the prospector. He takes over from there. Professor Keading. Oh boy. Where did you get that eye? Well, it's uh just one of those things coming back up here to the mesa over your super mule trail. I think I caught a hunk of of uranium ore in the eye, but it's nothing to worry about. All right. Uh, I want to ask you, we've heard from prospectors how they go about finding a likely uranium area, how they stake a claim, and how the ore is identified. Now, where do we go from here? I would say detailed exploration is the next step. Well, Dr. Stuart, I wonder if you could tell me what's going on here. Uh, all this activity seems to be an air of expectancy. What's happening? We've got a lot of time and money invested in this exploration program. Our assay show that we've got a high quality of ore, but we don't know yet whether we have enough tonnage to make a commercial mining operation. This is the time we really cross our fingers and watch those drills. I wonder if you can tell me uh how far down the ground are you right now. We're 175 ft. And how far will you go down? Oh, about 280 to 300 ft. We're drilling with air here entirely. This is a combination rig to drill with either air or water. We're using air. It circulates down through the Kelly and the rods and back up through the hole and through this tubing here and into the due cone. You mean it's all done by compressed air? No water at all? No water at all. Well, let's run it down a little bit more. [Music] We survey in a checkerboard pattern. Then we punch down drill holes at each intersection. Dust samples are collected from each hole. Then we send these over to the assessay laboratory right here in camp. How do you know which area to choose for your drill test? You've got an awful lot of land around here. That's true. Before we do our test drilling, we make an aerial cylometer survey. By the way, we've got one going on in another part of the property. Now, we can show you how it's done. We simply fly along over our grid pattern on the ground and we note the gamma radiation on the dial that you're holding. Don't you think we're flying a little low? Oh, no. Uh, we can't fly over 50 ft. We're about 45 ft now. If we go too high, the cinnometer won't pick up the gamma radiation at all. Well, I wish you'd told me that before we got up here. Now watch the reaction. See the needle move to the right. That's registering the gamma radiation. That's enough to tell us that we should explore it further. Next, we send in the ground crews. Of course, we have to haul in everything we need for working and living, drilling and laboratory equipment, everything, including groceries and the kitchen sink. The Atomic Energy Commission built a bridge across the Dolores Canyon up on Martin Mesa. One fork comes through Wildcat Canyon to our properties. It's called an access road, but we have to build a shelf road into the area we're working on. Quite a trick operating a dozer up there on the edge of space. We also have to live on the top of the mesa for several months. So, we have to set up our housing. We live in tents. We must have electric power to operate some of the equipment and to make living a little easier. That means we have to put in our own generator and power lines. You must be getting pretty anxious about uh your drill dust essay. The men are over at the lab now. Come on, let's go over and see if we've had any luck. any luck? Yes, it looks pretty good. We're getting 333 per thou 100 counts and 3.4 per thousand counts. Well, uh what uh what does all that mean? This means that it takes 3.4 minutes for a thousand gamma radiations to register. This is equivalent to ore, which would run about 2.26%. If it goes up another 2/10 of a percent, we've got a real good mining operation. After you know that you have commercial grade ore, the next logical step is to start to mine it, get it out, and make it useful. In a large productive mine such as the United States Canadian Corporation has over in Paradox Valley, thousands of tons of rich ore are being taken out every year. [Music] The tunnel is cut straight into the face of the rim following the ore body deep into the ground. Dynamite is tamped or packed deep into the drill holes and they get ready for blasting. The ore is freed from the earth and then mucked out by hand or with a mucking machine. Then it starts its long trip to the processing mill where it is turned into uranium oxide concentrate. Well, we've covered a lot of mileage in some fairly inaccessible places. We've seen all phases of the uranium rush from prospecting to assay to survey to exploration and mining. Professor Keading, what new meaning does this discovery of uranium and its use have for you, the uh geologist, the mining engineer? As a mining engineer and geologist, it means that man has another mineral uh from which he can extract a tremendously useful metal. Ever since man began, his welfare has depended upon his discovery and use of the metals in the earth. And this uranium is just such another resource. Remember, it's the geologist's job to find the ore. It's the mining engineers job to get it out, the metallergist's job to extract the metal from it, and the scientist and industrialist's job to find new and better uses for it for our general life. What other possibilities does the future hold for the use of uranium? The implication of the future of uranium is simply fantastic. It's simply enormous in terms of power. That power might be used destructively or it might be used constructively. Its peacetime uses reach into every nook and cranny of our civilization and those uses will increase as time goes on both in terms of industrial power, medical research and many many other fields. It is true that there is solar energy available, but that solar energy is not controllable to the extent that the atomic energy from uranium is. And it's my guess that the minerals and the metals that we will extract from them will be the basis of our very life for a long long time to come. Heat. [Applause] Heat.