Geologist to chime in about the rock. If it's what I think it is, it's the Monitor Butte member (a relatively thin, bleached-light colored sandstone layer) of the Chinle Formation (you were close on the name, its usually pronounced chin-lee or chin-lay depending on who you talk to). So another interesting thing about uranium deposits found in the US Southwest/colorado plateau, is that the deposits are generally regarded as "Roll-Front" deposits, so the uranium was carried in fluids of a certain oxidation state (so like a 'front' of oxidation rolled through the rocks), which flowed through possibly more permeable layers some time in the geologic past. As the uranium-bearing fluid flowed through the rock, it encountered different oxidation conditions which caused the uranium to precipitate out of the solution. Another interesting tidbit is that often high grade ore is encountered within fossil wood or bones, as they probably served as nucleation points. The fluid which flowed through these rocks is also thought to have caused the 'bleaching' of these rocks, the removal of hematite pigment which is pervasive and quite characteristic of formations like the Chinle. Whenever I encounter eocene or older rocks in the SW and find wood or bone fossils, I often wish I had a geiger counter with me to see if they are uranium mineralized. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
It makes sense since how else would these uranium compounds end up with petrified wood and other fossils. Something must have caused the uranium compound to dissolve, whatever the original compound was, it comes to a new location and it crystalizes. Sort of how CO2 enriched water is acidic and dissolves CaCO3 by converting it to Ca(HCO3)2, and at a different location, it converts back to CaCO3 and releases CO2 into the air.
the roll-fronts deposits are common in the Salt-Wash Member of the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic). The host rock here is the Moss Back (?) member of the Chinle Formation. (Triassic). IIRC the Moss is the basal member of the Chinle and lies a top the Moenkopi. One of the dullest jobs I ever had was sitting rigs while they drilled through the Wingate Sandstone. Insanely homogeneous sand. Drilled fast though. Usually.
@@bryancherry9253 awesome, thanks for the clarifications! Yeah, ive taught field camps in NM and CO where the Morrison is exposed in multiple field areas, bearing fossils in the salt wash and brushy basin mbrs. Usually see the upper chinle in or near the field mapping areas. Always forget to bring a counter with me to check. The roll fronts in the NM-rio grande area even extend to the eocene pre rift sed units, though U enrichment is generally low and uneconomical that far East. My gf did her MS in Moab looking at clay alteration in units, including the Wingate, but I never got to go to the field with her so I hope to check it out on a fun trip in the future. Most of what she had was probably roll front, but seemingly only Cu-Mn-Fe minerals present.
This is so cool, I explored that area awhile ago and Never thought of shining a black light on that entire area, Thanks for sharing that. My grandfather Jess Abernathy is the one who found this mineral and we was referred to it as abernathyite. He found it while working in the uranium mines in at temple mountain. He was an operator there. There is an article about him in one of the time life magazine too. He passed away when my dad was young and my dad has passed too so I love finding more info about things like this.
15 years Fracking in the oilfield for Halliburton and 22 years construction Framing houses. if you google up Abernathyite you will find that it was found in the Temple Mountains by my Grandfather Jess Abernathy
that music ^^' I started the video and went downstairs to prepare dinner. I couldn't hear the commentary, so i thought i misclicked and started a stray puppy rescue video from the Dodo :p The night shots, and the ore fluorescence, just gorgeous. bit scary on the counter though, that rose has thorns :)
Drew--As much as I loved the photography and the subject (former Navy nuke), I seriously enjoyed the soundtrack you employed for this work. Is this something available out there for purchase?
Glad you enjoyed it. Most of the music I use now in my videos is licensed through Musicbed. I don’t have all the track names in front of me at the moment…sorry. I’ll try and post all the music in the descriptions of the videos going forward.
Stunning. Right in the music, driving through the canyon, the sky appeared and looked fake. I guess this is mainly due to the rock being so red that your brain dials it down in disbelief until you see the sky. So what minerals make the red here? Iron? Bauxite? Edit: I think it's also the fluffy white clouds. In many areas this dry those are rare and indeed not really featuring in the opening shot much. Some Westerns show the same effect.
I wish I had a mine nearby Quebec. If it was me, I would break off chunks of the U mineral, take it home, process it and make a few U compounds and put it in my collection.
A Better Geiger is under that price and works pretty good for someone starting out. But if you want to track radiation on a phone or do gamma spectroscopy and some other stuff then the Radiacode 102 would be a great place to start.
Dang it, Drew… you owe me a full days worth of work at my job. I stumbled across your videos and was dumbfounded by the incredible documentary like quality of them- …and then ended up binge watching a dozen or so, and got very little work done today! >_< Keep up the amazing work!
This video should have 1000x more views. The drone air images, the night pictures, the effort you've put to produce this is nothing short of a natgeo documentary. The picture at 11:39 then? Breathtaking! Congrats
you are probably the only youtuber I know that takes a practical interest in radioactive things. Thank you so much! I kinda just binged like 80% of your videos lol
You got my sub after I watched the Trinity test site video. Love this kind of content, I could sit back and watch it for hours. Mine exploration, adventuring, metal detecting and everything in between, love this kind of stuff. Thanks for the great videos and all the great intelligent content!
I miss that area of Utah. It's so beautiful. I lived there for about 18 years. That was back in the 1980's and 1990's. I used to take my kids to adventure around these areas. Thank you for the drone shots and the other things you showed. Oh, you should know that that steel structure is called a head frame. It would have hauled ore out from inside the mine usually. But in this case, it was used to core the underlying strata.
Hey Drew, I would strongly encourage you to recognize the risk you are taking wandering around these sites. Beware that any dust you inhale could be a strong alpha emitter and could be stuck in your lungs for a long time. You might also be tracking alpha emitting dust all over your truck and through your daily life. Operating mines track this very carefully and any object taken on site is carefully screened before it leaves site. At these historic sights you have no idea what you're exposing yourself too. It's not worth lung cancer 10 years down the road. I say this a former nuclear energy worker.
@@MET90LX It is dangerous indeed but not too much i think. Some types of radioactive materials stay in the body and are deposited in organs. While other types are eliminated from the body in urine. So it is important which radioactive materials you are exposed and their volume as well, those mines are inactive for decades so i really doubt there could be much materials on surface. Unless you start digging around it should be safe..
@stockstreamtwitch I appreciate that two random strangers are telling someone with first hand experience and education in the subject that they're wrong
I can't believe this guy isn't more popular. I just might have to drive up there some day to add to my rock and mineral collection. the hottest rock I've found in Arizona so far 500-600 counts per minute. I still don't know exactly what it is. it's either samarskite or columbite- tantalite. in a road cut pegmatite.
So glad I found your channel. As an SF author, this stuff is pure gold. It doesn't hurt that your presentation is more like what you find in a channel with 100k+ subscribers. I'll spread the word, hopefully we'll get you a silver plaque.
I'm guessing that was shortwave UV with that awesome photo inside the adit of the mine? What wavelength would be best for that? Im guessing something in the 365nm range? That photograph was INSANE. Super cool.
Thanks for saying that Mark. I've been making video for the last 16 years but all of those have been timelapse and drone based pieces. I wish I would have been building my audience here on YT instead of on Vimeo. Either way I enjoy making content and visiting the places I film. I'm sure I'll post some of my timelapse pieces here when I have some time. But for now I have a lot of radiation related footage to get through. Thanks for watching the video.
I agree, I just subscribed, and will share.. First thing about seeing your videos. Is that I have been looking for a practical way to check for and measure radiation. Like the device you use -Thermo RadEye E-20, but it is sooo expensive.. Had been looking at the Ecotest Terra-P +, but again expensive. It also seems these devices are only available from other countries..? I just do not have any reference to make any decisions, so your videos and practical information really helps.. Thanks..
Great drone footage and videography in general. The montage of camera angles capturing your hike up to the mine entrance was quite professional. Keep up the great work! All success to you in 2023 and beyond.
The States has some stunning scenery.. yet all I get see in the popular media and tourist ads here in te UK is for tourist traps like Las Vagas and Disney. Thanks for this glimpse of the real USA.
Careful driving around on those trails out there or you'll be a RU-vid cross-over video with my other favorite Southwest US RU-vid channel, Matts OffRoad Recovery ;) The mine you poked the blacklight in and took a picture of was absolutely amazing. What I wouldn't give to see that with my own eyes - stunning!
@@RadioactiveDrew thought you were gonna say a Mr.Ballen video haha
3 года назад
Woow! Amazing video like always! Part from 11:30 to 12:30 is outstanding! 😳 I just imagine what the scene wuld be like if a drone could film canyon at the night in green glow spots. 😁
We camped near Temple mountain a few times in the '80s and '90s. Back then the tunnels were wide open. I walked a short distance into one of them one day. I was amazed at how wide and tall the opening was way inside there.
bottom midframe @11:34 there is a purple glowing circle highlighted in the UV light, is it a survey pin wonder? And late to the party as always but I want to thank you for the videos and the time it takes to create them.
In 1952 I was six years old and in the summer would camp with my dad and my mom's cousin at several horizontal shaft mines and one vehicle shaft..they held the claim to the Rio Algum min 5:12 e site near Moab...my dad gave his share away in 1972..the rest is history...biggest strike on the Western slope..17 years 24/7 and mill for entire Western slope of the Rockies was built there...250 people lost their jobs when it was abandoned..while still producing ore...that's my story and I'm sticking to it. LOL
excellent content, informative, great video--but too many "Cool" in the film, at least 10X you used that terrible descriptor; find new adjectives, maybe? thanks!
My old neighbor (now dead) was retired geologist. He mentioned he worked for the government back in the 1940s. They would fly him around AZ, NV, UT in a small plane looking for uranium. He said it was pretty easy to spot if you knew where to look. He looked for round yellow spots on the ground that were usually good deposits.
It would’ve been cool if you dropped a GoPro with a flashlight pointed in the same direction as the lens was filming down that mineshaft on a fishing line to see what was beneath the earth
This was an awesome video, I had to watch since you mentioned it in other videos. I liked the night video and photography. This is very educational. I miss hiking Utah.
Temple Mountain is one of my favorite places to explore. That whole area could be made a national park…but hopefully it never becomes one. Way more freedoms without it being one.
I worked with compounding nuclear medicine. Such a shame that people thought it was bad for making electricity. Safest industry in the world. I liked the old way of measuring REM. Why did they change it. According to my badge I did reach my life time exposure in one brief period. Never understood how that happened unless it was sabotage. But I did witness breakage of a exnon-133 glass ampule due to rough shipment from NEN. The delivery guy carried it on his shoulders never realizing hiw close he was to unshielded gas.
REM ("radiation equivalent to man") wasn't really changed as far as I know. It seems like with the stagnation of the American nuclear power industry following Three Mile Island, Europe and Asia essentially moved into something akin to a leadership position in nuclear energy. And they've always measured radiation in "sieverts."
At 11.40 With the black light looking in at the mine system is such a great image. I have a small piece of Autunite, it looks like book pages and it glows green like this, Pretty safe kept in a clear display case in a cabinet, any dust from this mineral breathed in would be bad. The landscape is a real badlands spooky area, it looks so old and weathered.
My father was involved in the atomic testing program in Nevada from 1949 to 1955. I have always wondered what the radiation levels are downwind (East) of the Nevada test range on Public land?
I would imagine now not much. Mainly because the half-life from most of the isotopes created in an atomic bomb are short lived. Granted they are some that have longer half-lives but those are usually much harder to detect.
On a rare occasion with the company I work with, we’ve had to do ground samples of mines like this all over Utah. It’s some of the weirdest experiences, it feels Barron driving the dump truck up those dirt roads all day, helping hand shovel dirt. And maybe occasionally taking souvenirs from abandoned vehicles if you don’t get caught
Drew, I'm jealous lol. I'm slowly planning my retirement to at minimum included seeing what this country has to offer away from the east coast. THIS spot is on my bucket list as I love radio rocks! Anyways, I'm curious what truck and tent did you happen to have? Obviously a decent truck will be needed and the tenting capability off the roof seems very nice. I've only seen something similar once before. I want something reliable too.
I have a Toyota Tacoma 2011 4WD 4.0L V6 Double Cab. I bought it new and have over 360K miles on it. Great truck for my needs. The tent I'm using in this video is the one that Front Runner Outfitters makes and have been using this tent pretty hard for the last 8 years. I'm switching to the iKamper 2 person rooftop tent because the zippers on the Front Runner tent are starting to fail. It has been a pretty great tent for the last 8 years. But I'm ready to upgrade to something that is a bit nicer and packs up faster.
I did some work on radiation detection using commercial camera sensors and you can see an example of it in the night shot when you had the ISO cranked up. A few pixels light up white for just one frame when they're hit by radiation -- for example at 7:50 there's one on your nose just as you're saying "really cool". Just discovered your channel a few days ago and love your videos! Keep it up!
I think the noise you were seeing was more from the high iso from the camera and not from the radiation near by. I've had my cameras in higher fields of radiation without seeing any noise like what you're seeing. But if you do put the cameras in a high enough field or have a strong enough source close to the sensor you can start to see noise coming in.
Uranium isn’t death. It’s a pretty amazing element. In fact when thorium is used for fuel it’s only to be turned it into uranium 233. Thorium isn’t fissile, but uranium is.
I have two UV lights I use in my kit. I'm planning on making a video about these lights but here are some links. More expensive but the light is smaller and more intense. store.waveformlighting.com/collections/realuv/products/realuv-led-flashlight-with-blackout-filter-technology Cheaper but bigger light. amzn.to/3SQ7hEQ
That is wild it glows in the dark its like an old wind up clock the hands glow when you turn off your lights off thats what they used years ago for watches clocks etc.👍⚛💯
Always wanted to go out west and explore, my best friend from England was planning to come over here and we would go out west together. He died in a car wreck on christmas day last year, I'm still planning to go out west one day...one year.....
Subbed after watching your vid on the hot Pentax lens. Couldn't help but notice several bright speckles in your moonlight video. Were those just insects, or high energy particles from your proximity to the ore?
Rad video. Have you ever thought about exploring the Hanford area? I live in Richland, Washington. Home of the B reactor and most of the plutonium manufactured for A bomb
I was using the Sony A7S3 as the main video camera. The Nikon D850 as the camera that took the still of that mine glowing under UV light. The drone was a DJI Air 2S.
How long was the mine in operation? With all the old wood structures, makes it seem much older than I would have figured uranium would have been sought.
I think they had two periods of mining there. I think it first started off in the 1920’s…mainly for radium. Then it got crazy out there again in the late 1940’s thru the 1960’s…this time for uranium because the government was buying it.
What type of UV flashlight did you use - or can you suggest a similar one? I was just there last week and had no idea about the UV rocks. Now I want to be equipped to see them next time. Safe travels!
In the video I was using the uvBeast light in the 365nm range. To find these glowing deposits takes a little bit of work. But I'm sure if you explore around some of the old mining sites in Temple Mtn area you'll find some.
That core sample was the biggest ive ever seen there normally 2" that was more like 3ft across, looking into the stope was amazing it just kept going down, with a decent mask you would be OK in there ,thank you
Yeah, these are the biggest I have ever seen. Pretty cool cross-section of the rock. Going into these mines makes me a little nervous. Some of the ones that aren't bricked up have a super weird smell. Kind of smells like some type of fuel that was left in the mine. Of course sealing up so many of the mines has made this problem even worse because the air can't circulate in there.
The glowing cave image was just cool, is it possible to get a copy of the image, I want to print a large copy for my office wall? Another really interesting video and it has that high end production feel too.
I prospected with my dad in the 50's near Basin Wyoming I was 8 10 years old. I think his partners found the Meriam mine in the Pryor mountains just north of Cowley Wyoming
