Dangerous McCormick Uranium Mine 

Smart guy!

Thanks.

No problem. Glad you enjoyed the trip.

This mineral looks like autunite, I think.

Would be quite an experience to work down in that mine.

The area is very cool with lots to explore. So far this has been the only mine that remains open in the area that I’ve found.

Utah is one of my favorite places to visit. If I didn't live in Montana I would live there.

There are thousands of abandoned uranium mines in Utah, pretty cool stuff to explore

@@reagan6743 cool to explore but it should be done with great caution.

@@RadioactiveDrew definitely. There are lots of adits that are ticking time bombs waiting to collapse

@@RadioactiveDrew Where can I get a Geiger counter like yours? How much are they?

Would be cool to see a map of the mines around that area.

@@RadioactiveDrew I also asked my dad he said that mine you showed was not the McCormick mine and he also said it was in 80’s when they mined the rest of it but all of those mines connected together underground

Yeah, I’ve had other people say the same thing. I’m just going off of mining reports…which aren’t always correct.

Thanks so much. This will give me some gas for my truck on the next adventure. Everything helps.

It can be pretty exciting for sure.

That sounds about right. I think there are different oxidation states of uranium that might fluoresce under a UV light.

I pulled a couple of pieces out of there. Not as active as other pieces I've found in that area.

@@RadioactiveDrew Let me know if you ever want a closer look at some of your specimens. I am a geochemist at Utah State University, and I have access to lots of equipment including gamma spec, x-ray equipment, ICP-MS, etc.

@@andrewlonero8003 thanks for offer, I might take you up on it.

Exploring mines by myself can be a little scary.

Thanks.

That is actually the Brunke decline on the Big Buck claim group. The McCormick mine was part of the Standard Uranium operations on the Big Buck claims and just to the south of this location. More than 24 million pounds of uranium were produced from the very high grade ore deposits mined in this part of the Big Indian mining district on the Lisbon Valley Anticline.

This level of radiation is pretty low.

you ever wear any emf blocking materials while within one of those mines.?

@michaelmyrick6973 emf blocking material won’t work against gamma rays. They are too high energy. They only work with energy waves that have lower frequencies.

@@RadioactiveDrew interesting ill have to test this. silver is a magical element electrum is equally as interesting. i wonder if that's been tested with a charge in the silver as well. not only is it antibacterial it can stabilize water and other things by proxy.

Thanks.

Aircraft instruments used radium, which is found in uranium ore.

No…but I should. Any suggestions on one to get?

@@RadioactiveDrew H2S and oxygen sensor. Id check Mine Safety PPE.

@raginroadrunner thanks.

Well the ISO was kind of high in the camera so it was mainly noise from the sensor. Maybe some of it is from gamma radiation but this mine wasn't that radioactive to be honest...compared to other uranium mines.

It’s the decay products that can stick to you…not uranium itself. Usually it’s the decay products that come after radon…the daughters of radon. These are negatively charged and will stick too you. Back when these were being mined they had ventilation to keep the radon concentrations down. But if you aren’t working down in the mine and only doing a quick visit then the risk is very low because your exposure is very low.

Usually iron.

Not any alive so far. I find skins and skeletons.

I sell ore samples from the area on uraniumstore.com

I put a limiter filter on my videos now.

Little vein of uranium. You would have to process a couple tons of uranium just to get one gram of radium.

I have some from this mine I'm going to sell in a couple weeks. I usually sell what I find at uraniumstore.com or at my eBay store www.ebay.com/usr/uraniumstore

@@RadioactiveDrew I did not know the Mc Cormick mine was where it is. I drove right past it a couple of weeks ago. Rats. I went to your website. Did the 70+k carnotite rock come from the mine in the video?

@@ByteSci none of the samples on my site are from that mine yet. I have some from that mine that need to be photographed and listed.

@@ByteSci if you want to see the pieces I found at this mine they are up on the site now. All of the ones that are super colorful are the ones from this mine...along with the petrified wood infused with uranium.

Utah, near Moab. There are a bunch of uranium mines out there.

@@RadioactiveDrew very scenic desert🏜

One of my favorite places to explore.

You would get 5 times more radiation exposure flying from LA to NY than visiting this mine.

Not really. Radiation exposure is based on time and distance. I wasn't down there long enough for it to be a problem and the level of radiation wasn't that strong. There is another mine in the area that has a much higher level of exposure due to a lot of radon gas and higher uranium concentrations. Short exposures to medium levels of radiation isn't that concerning to me. There are some sources out there like Cobalt 60, used for medical treatments and food preservation, that could give you a fatal dose in a couple minutes if you were holding it.

I went back there with a more powerful light. That video should be coming out this week.

reflection on camera

That was a lens flare coming from the light I was using.

The mine doesn’t come up on many maps. But I’ve seen it spelled McCormick on a few. I guess it all comes down to who wrote the info down on the reports in the past.

My Geiger counter that I'm using will detect alpha radiation which is what radon emits. Also it can detect all the decay products of radon which emit alpha, beta and gamma radiation. Based on these readings I can see how much radon is in a uranium mine. I'm not worried about getting lung cancer from visiting these mines. If I was working down in them for long periods of time I would be much more concerned about my exposure.

@@RadioactiveDrew You are missing the point and need to learn a bit about the physics of radon detection. We use radon methods all the time in uranium exploration and your Geiger counter does not work as a radon detector because you are not dealing with a point source of alpha emitters nor gamma emitters as they are spread throughout a volume and a GM detector is very inefficient anyway. You have to use appropriate equipment - horses for courses. Your problem, not mine. Speak to an expert at a modern uranium mine.

@@karhukivi I know the Radeye B20 isn't a radon detector. I have a dedicated radon detector at home to monitor levels when handling items. But I can gauge how contaminated a mine is based on the activity of the air in the mine. There is a mine just down the road from this one that has a very high level of radon in it. I can tell because once you walk in and back out your clothes are contaminated, plus the meter reads around 80,000 CPM in the air. I know its radon daughter contamination based on the decay rates. Also your dose rate of 200 chest x-rays in 30 mins isn't correct. The radiation that comes from radon is a mix of different types. Usually x-ray exposure is very similar to gamma radiation exposure. Alpha and beta radiation usually don't get factored into dose rates because they don't have the penetrating power that x-rays and gamma radiation has. The majority of the radon decay products are alpha and beta emitters.

@@RadioactiveDrew You are breathing in the alpha emitters with every breath. Once in the lungs they decay to metallic particles that continue to emit even more alpha particles - that is the problem. We use ZnS scintillation cells, polymer film, ionisation chambers and alpha particle spectrometry to measure the total alpha particle count in a given volume of air, which can be residential, soil gas or mine air. I can guarantee that your Geiger counter is not measuring anything that you can relate to radon in air. But you know best!

Well you tried... :(

🤣👍🏼

That’s the plan, when I go back there.

عالی

Yeah, I don’t think so. I’ll make my videos how I want to make them.

U spreadin it

In this mine I don't become contaminated walking inside. There is one close by that does contaminate you. Its nothing you can spread and its undetectable in 24 hours.

I don’t think all of them ended up getting cancer. Seems like the ones that smoked had a way higher chance of getting cancer.

I like the music.

Thanks for that. This mine was the first time I've seen these "mats" used.

PSP: perforated steel plate

There was so much of this PSP made in ww2 that we were still using it in the Vietnam war in the 70’s.

Why would “someone want to hold the ground up”? 😂

Are you walking on the ceilings again?😂

There are some pretty good spots around there. I'll be making a video about a location that is right off the road anyone can visit.

time stamp? i couldn't see

Go back and watch when the image gets white flecks from the video dropping out when radiation hits camera.

@@user-rs1fo2dd9b 3:18 - 3:46 He's right, you can see small amount of white specs/dots in darkness. It kinda looks like old time grain film. But OP is right as the gamma rays penetrate the lens.

Didn't you guys hear him say " let's see what it looks like under the UV light " ??????...........Or is there something else that could be gamma ray getting into the camera ???...............? Erik

Everything about this is a bad thing, this dude is 100% going to have a premature death from cancer.

@randomchannel-px6ho why would you think that?

I’ve seen a lot of his videos. Maybe that’s where he draws the line…with uranium mines.

@@RadioactiveDrew is there a special filter for a respirator?

@@george2113 I think radon goes right through filters as its a noble gas, i could be wrong though.

I revisited this site and went back in with a brighter light and looked around a bit more. That video should be out in a couple weeks.

@@RadioactiveDrew thanx , look forward to seeing

I just went back to this site to film a bit more of the location. There is a lot that has collapsed in this mine. Seems extremely unsafe to go into other sections.

@@RadioactiveDrew do you know if the load was worked out?

I’m not sure. Mining history on this site has been a bit less than the other mines in the area. Most of the mines in the area are sealed up but this one has been left open.

The radiation exposure wasn’t that high. There is a mine near this one that has a crazy level of radon coming out of it. It’s the mine in one of my first videos about radon.

That's exactly right and once it's in your lungs, it stays there for rest of your life. RD is gonna think everything's fine for 20 years or so, until it isn't. Failing to wear a particulate respirator and waving a geiger counter around, while saying it's not that bad, is extremely foolish behaviour. If the rockfalls don't get you, the long-term ingestion of radioactive dust will.

I try to be as careful as I can be.

Your life might even get CANCELLED!!!

I hear you loud and clear. But its a risk I have accepted that I'm okay with.

They could get radium from almost any uranium mine. Of course the mines with the higher percentage of uranium in the ore was more sought after because they could get more radium out of it. I think the history of this area in regards to uranium mining didn't start until the 1950's. Mining uranium for radium started in the early 1900's. I believe the Temple Mountain area did some mining in that time period specifically for radium. I did a video about the area.

​@@RadioactiveDrew Yes, wasn't sure if it was one of their mines but i think the U.S. Radium facility processed half a ton of ore per day, some of the ore was sourced from Utah which was one of several locations the United States Corporation used.

The mineral even looks like the watch paint.

I plan on going back there and doing another video about the mine.

Maybe trust your gut feeling and stay out and alive? Just a suggestion and enjoy the landscape in the outside and journey getting there.

@@RadioactiveDrew while I wouldn't suggest an entourage, wouldn't it be safer to invest the mine with a partner?

There are some mines I want to explore that I don’t want to go in alone.

Well, at least you will still be alive!😀

I just went back to this location to make another video about it. I wore a helmet.

The video after next. So in a couple weeks. I already went out there and shot some footage.

@@RadioactiveDrew that's great , also it's good that you came back unharmed .

I know. I wore one when I went back to this location.

The radon was pretty low in this mine. Usually the mines I visit that have a high concentration of radon gas contaminate me and my equipment. This mine didn't do any of that. I did a video about Radon Health Mines and other mines high in radon about a year ago on this channel.

@@RadioactiveDrew incourage as many people as you can to bathe in mercury and dance in a radom storm we need it these days

@@springchickena1 nothing wrong with going into this mine. Having a rocking fall on you is by far the greatest risk.

Elemental mercury is more or less safe, it's the methylmercury that you need to look out for.

I'm using the DJI Air 2 S drone. Really happy with its functions and video quality.

That’s awesome, I looked at buying one of those a while back, wife was not on board LOl. Would love to see a future video review of your Thermo Geiger counter, Cheers!

@@englishguy1985 yeah I'm thinking about doing a little review about the Radeye B20 and how it compares to other detectors that do the same thing.

@@RadioactiveDrew I would like to see that review. I have a couple of geiger counters and am also learning as I go.

@@JD-xh6cy That plan is to do a little review on the Radeye B20 and comparing it to something like a Ludlum Model 12 and maybe some other detectors. But that video will happen a little later.

No I don't. I've never heard of this detector.

That’s incorrect…they got dusted by a fallout cloud from the Nevada Test Site after a nuclear test.

@@RadioactiveDrew ...And the production company hauled sand/soil from the site back to the Hollywood studio for an exact match ("The Conqueror" 1956), and more exposure.

Yes you can fly with a Geiger counter.

Why would they not?