Chemistry: A Volatile History to investigate. Marie Curie began her investigations by testing a uranium ore called pitchblende with an electrometer. She discovered it was four times more radioactive than pure uranium, and wondered if this was due to the presence of an even more radioactive element in the pitchblende. Curie began stockpiling tonnes of pitchblende, then in the most basic of workshops with primitive equipment she undertook a multitude of complex and dangerous procedures in an attempt to isolate this new element. In the event, Curie discovered two new elements, polonium named after her native Poland and radium. Whilst these were naturally occurring
Uranium mining in Colorado consists of Tertiary hydrothermal veins filling fracture zones oriented predominantly NNW-SSE in gneiss, schist, and quartzite of the Precambrian Idaho Springs Formation. The chief ore mineral is pitchblende, which occurs with adularia and ankerite. Schwartzwalder could interest no one in his discovery, so he drove the first adit of the Schwartzwalder mine by himself, made the first ore shipment in 1953, and sold the mine in 1955. The Schwartzwalder mine was the source of more than 99% of the uranium produced from the Front Range province. The mine operated until 1995, producing 17 million pounds (7700 metric tons) of uranium