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Posted by: Dorian'sCurse Jul 30 2018, 08:23 PM

Hello everyone, I am brand new, out of Texas. I take a trip to Colorado every year with my father and each time look for gold and uranium ore. However after 3 years I either run into reclaimed sites covered in clay, patented claims with personell who deny me access or just plain dont find anything. I am a physics major here in Austin and collect periodic elements as a hobby and really want a handful of uranium ore to fulfill the francium and uranium and other obscure radioactive element slots that occur during radioactive decay of uranium but are not possible to get in pure form. I will be going to Colorado August 9th and was hoping someone could give me exact locations where they have personally found samples (pitchblende, uranophane, etc...) that are not private land or claims or under 30ft of clay due to reclemation by the govt.
Funny enough there is Uranium at my birthhouse here in South Texas, but it is 300ft underground and they only mine it via solution, in situ I believe it is called, and that is out of my reach haha. Please any help would be greatly appreciated, the more specifc the better. I am going on year 4 of our father son trips and have turned up with zilch.
Thank you all. For reference I have looked already in Marshall Pass and Fossil Ridge near TinCup since that is where they found the mineral and is where my dad loves ti camp. But we can go wherever needed although I would prefer places in central and eastern Colorado and not out around uravan.
-David H.

Posted by: Dorian'sCurse Aug 4 2018, 10:11 AM

SOOO no one has replied to my post lately...I am wondering why. I see plenty of people mentioning finding these ores in their travels, but no one seems to want to share. Perhaps it is just a slow week? Perhaps they think I should put my time in researching. I have done that. My sister has her Masters degree in Geology from the University of Oklahoma and I have poured over more grainy black and white scans of USGS reports from the 1950s onward to count. MinDat.org and thediggings are constantly on my screen. My dilemma is I have a very limited amount of time in Colorado with my father before class starts up again on August 27th at which point another year will be gone. Because of this I cannot afford the time to visit a half dozen different locations around Colorado in the search of minerals that are ultimately greatly less valuable than the diesel burned to drive from Texas to Colorado. This is part a trip for me and my dad to hang out and partly a school project and means of fulfilling my periodic table of elements collection. Simply buying a chunk of ore that is gem grade online just to break it into pieces to fill different element spots is reprehensible and something I wouldnt do as I dont need Gem grade samples. I beg anyone with info to please share.

If you are afraid to share, that is absurd....if you only knew the chemical process just to extract the metal from the ores you would have no fears, then the process of actually purifying the metal isotopes for use in any sort of application requires MASSIVE facilities so large and energy wasteful that only governments can foot the bill for them. To those with less knowledge of the topic, it in not possible to argue that the few samples I want to collect would be of any risk. Furthermore the dangers of naturally occurring radioactive material are minimal and they are not even regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

PLEASE I LEAVE IN 5 DAYS AND ANY HELP IS GREATLY APPRECIATED.
Thank you in advance,
David H.

Posted by: johnnybravo300 Aug 5 2018, 09:28 PM

I live near the areas you mentioned and there was also a lot of uranium mining between marshall pass and cochetopa canyon south of Doyleville and Sargents below the Divide. Other than that no one prospects for uranium that I know of here but I could be mistaken.

Posted by: Dorian'sCurse Aug 7 2018, 08:38 PM

Thank you for your reply. Yes I know there are mines there but the good ones are private and under reclamation. I drove in and spoke to the mining reps on my last visit. Geologically that occurance is an abnormality so it is all clustered in a relatively small area accordingto the USGS reports. Since I have not had any replies other than yours I am going to go there again and pick around old mines that never went into production and are therefore not claimed in hopes I can find something. The mine reps let me in on the elevation all the occurances are at so that helps but even with my geiger counter it is like finding a needle in a haystack since the large float ore was all picked up 70 years ago when the place was originally discovered.

Posted by: GeoMatt Sep 5 2018, 10:09 PM

The easiest outcrop of uranium is at the US285/I-470 interchange in SW Denver.

I don't look at this site often, but if you are still looking I can provide you with a list of places that should still provide decent hand samples.