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 pyrophoric; small grains will ignite spontaneously in air at room temperature. Uranium metal is commonly handled with gloves as a sufficient precaution. Uranium concentrate is handled and contained so as to ensure that people do not inhale or ingest it. Uranium Uranium is a chemical element with symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weakly radioactive because all isotopes of uranium are unstable, with half-lives varying between 159,200 years and 4.5