Uraninite named, was either unknown, impossible or not economically feasible). The mineral has been known at least since the 15th century from silver mines in the Ore Mountains, on the German/Czech border. The type locality is the historic mining and spa town known as Joachimsthal, the modern day Jáchymov, on the Czech side of the mountains, where F. E. Brückmann described the mineral in 1772. Pitchblende from the Johanngeorgenstadt deposit in Germany was used by M. Klaproth in 1789 to discover the element uranium. All uraninite minerals contain a small amount of radium as a radioactive decay product of uranium. Marie
Uranium ore in the Athabasca Basin region of Canada. Uranium is generally used to generate nuclear fuel. Uranium deposits are generally classified based on host rocks, structural setting, and mineralogy of the deposit. The most widely used classification scheme was developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and subdivides deposits into 15 categories. Uranium is a silvery-gray metallic weakly radioactive chemical element. It has the chemical symbol U and atomic number 92. The most common isotopes in natural uranium are U (99.27%) and U (0.72%). All uranium isotopes present in natural uranium are radioactive and fissionable, and U is fissile (will