Show biggest boom in mining history affects entire united states the biggest boom in american mini mining g history is now under w way the fever has a already ready hit utah uta ak colorado florida wall street and many places in between the search for uranium ores has now reached a pitch that in some ways surpasses the frenzy of 0 the gold rush years ago if youre up in a plane uranium tu rn hunting with a in the uranium happy colorado plateau heed this advice from veteran prospectors dont circle back for a second look if the needle goes haywire enough people will ces be watching you maneuver so that by the time you land the country under your circles will be all U staked out one important result of the big uranium rush te is the boost it has given give to the relative ranking of this country country as a basic producer six yea years rs ago the U S was hardly in tl the e running it had what the empet experts s called uncertain prospects but now jesse C johnson raw materials director for atomic energy commission has revealed that we have become one of the worlds leading producers we shall soon be competing for first tit place with th the e belgian congo and part of th the e time be in first place says johnson congo ores are lire of higher grades however so the U S will probably keep baving from the congo in big quantities from the original deposits in the colorado plateau mining has been expanded into south dakota wyoming california and nevada in the plateau alone there are now more than uranium producers S there are even companies extracting tr uranium from phosphate rock in florida nobody knows how many backyard back yard prospectors are re out listening for clicks in geiger counters even though gome some relatively large ore deposits have been found in this country they will be mined out in a very few years johnson ays says that if prospecting and ex oration were to stop today by Sl 1961 we would be back where we were in 1947 the answer Is more discovery over loo uranium bearing minerals are now known to exist they have been found in small usually noncommercial deposit deposits in many parts of the country in the desolate aarts farts at mesas of the colorado plateau where here most domestic uranium is mined the chief source is the mineral its a sedimentary type of de posit usually found in sandstones sandstone some deposits are bright yellow to tr color athers pale green or gray still till have a brownish tinge the naos and utes who roamed the area hundreds of years ago were the first to find a use ag or uranium ore their brilliant red and yellow war paints were made from the powdery carn found along the canyon walls LP gas also called liquefied petroleum gas is comprised chiefly of propane and butane hydrocarbons or a mixture of both most LP gas Is obtained from plants processing natural gas in the oil and gas field though adl dit ional supplies come from oil refineries fin eries processing cruda crude petroleum |