Uranium mining in Colorado the Slick Rock, Gypsum Valley, Uravan, and Gateway mining districts. Uranium mining in southwest Colorado goes back to 1898, when a miner dug ten tons of yellow ore that tested high in uranium and vanadium out of a deposit at Roc Creek in Montrose County, Colorado, and shipped it to France, where M. M. C. Friedel and E. Cumenge identified the new mineral that they named carnotite. The mineral was mined for its vanadium, with uranium as a byproduct. Although radium had been discovered in 1898, it had been derived from pitchblende, and the radium content of carnotite was not
Uranium mining in Colorado back uranium-mining projects. There are no currently producing uranium mines in Colorado. Hydrothermal uranium deposits are present through a widely spaced area in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, in Larimer, Boulder, Gilpin, Clear Creek, and Jefferson counties. The first uranium identified in the USA was pitchblende from the Wood gold mine at Central City, Colorado in 1871. Pitchblende orebodies were also discovered in the Calhoun mine, the Kirk mine, and some others. About 122,000 pounds (55 metric tons) of uranium oxide (UO) were shipped at irregular intervals from six gold mines in the Central City district from 1872