The Pitchblende of Cornwall, England (1915) [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

The Pitchblende of Cornwall, England (1915) [pdf]

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37 pointsdcminter11 comments

Interesting article.

When I visited North Cornwall I noticed some dark grey but slightly metallic looking rocks. I was surprised how heavy they were, although they don't make good 'hammer' rocks because they break quite easily. They were usually embedded in other rocks, but occasionally you'd find one free.

I always assumed it was a type of coal.

Maybe I shouldn't have been playing with them if uranium is a main constituent...

Gosh! Where was this, if you don't mind me asking?

I live in Cornwall, am a programmer, and an amateur geologist so this post makes me very excited, hah!

In the rocks a few hundred meters to the south of polzeath beach. I think there might be more to the north too, about halfway to pentire.

Houses in Cornwall need Radon surveys. https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/environment/environmental-protec...

A lot of houses in the US Mid-Atlantic states need Radon checks, too. But I've never heard of uranium ores here.

The uranium and other radioactive substances are in the granite the north eastern states. I think the operative theory is the successive glaciations pushed most of the upper levels of the soil south, exposing the granite. Over the last 20k years, the soil is rather thin so you will see homes with basements that are not far from the granite. Radon then comes up and collects in these basements that aren't well ventilated.

there is a proposed uranium mine in virginia http://www.virginiaplaces.org/energy/mininguranium.html

@dcminter out of curiosity what was the reason to submit this?

I read the article about space-originating plutonium. Looked up something about that in Wikipedia, noticed that there had been uranium mines in England, wanted to know more (I'm English), googled and found and read this.

I then submitted it because I thought the 1915 perspective on Uranium was interesting.

Thank you for submitting it! It's a combination of all my interests and location.

Fascinating.

Thanks - if you get a response to your query in the other thread and investigate I hope you'll write it up and submit it!

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