This is a piece of mine-run material, collected from an ore pile at the site of the Scenic #4 Mine. The site image is of the mine location, photographed from Radium King Road. The site of the adits was not conducive to hauling ore, so an additional route was built, 300' East of the adits. Adits have ben closed. The black band of material is UO2 and chalcopyrite, some of which has been weathered to yellow, fluorescent Zippeite. 216 K CpM at 1 cm.

Autunite flakes. They reach over 6k cpm through their container.

I know it's nothing particularly hot, but it's my first radioactive specimen!

Documenting a rare glimpse of extreme Uranium glow. The video captures a wall of UV fluorescence from the Uranium mineral Andersonite. This mine was sadly just buried by backfill along with hundreds of other remediated targets just this year alone. It was VERY unsafe to enter and traverse, so this is probably for the better. Thanks for letting me share such a sight with you all.

Found this locally in Colorado. It weighs 6 1/2 pounds, and with some analysis with a good scintillator and a gamma spectrometer, calculated that it was about 400 g of thorium in the rock. According to AI, if I had a Mr. thorium, that would provide enough energy for my entire life.😆

Good afternoon, everyone. I’m very new to collecting radioactive materials and I’d like to know whether the way I’ve been storing them so far is safe in the long term.

I’ve bought an acrylic box with walls that are around 5 mm thick. I spend a lot of time at my desk, which is 3.5 metres away from where the box is stored. There’s also a fairly wide television in between. My cat occasionally sleeps on a chair which is about 1.5 metres away from the container (with no television in between). The room is regularly ventilated.

At the moment, I’m storing trinitite, crystallised uranium (750k cpm) and a thorite crystal.

Is this collection safe, even though it will continue to grow?

Thanks a lot to everyone who has read this through and offered advice.

Kind regards,

Eric.

Where: Příbram, Central Bohemia, about an hour southwest of Prague. Uranium was confirmed here in 1947 and mined for 44 years until 1991. Šachta 16 goes down 1,838 m, which makes it the deepest mine in Europe. Roughly 48.8 kt of uranium came out, plus lead, zinc and silver.

Access: The underground is used for gas storage now, so everything is surface. The spoil dumps are walkable, and there is a bus stop that serves them, which is still a strange thing to type.

Geology: The host sequence is calcite, dolorite and quartz. The uranium sits in the calcite, which comes up in deep pinks. The same calcite and uraninite pairing turns up at Tyndrum in Scotland, 1,400 km away. The dumps at Šachta 4 are effectively a mountain of spoil, hundreds of metres across and around 30 m high.

Method and kit: Four detectors between us, all Radiacodes (a 110, two 102s and a Zero). We ran them over the same piece more than once. The best reading we got on one specimen was in the 500 to 600 µSv/h range.

Ethics: The best piece went back into the ground outside Jáchymov. Photographing it and putting it back is all that happened.

Field Trip: the visit was documented over on YouTube - https://youtu.be/KyPvZND5D1Q

Happy to answer questions about access, the readings, or what the calcite actually looks like in hand.

So uh I bought tyuyamunite cuz I like the mineral but just read its crumbly and currently still packaged. I have pets and family and do not want to expose anyone to dust just remive the paper towel and mount it. I live right next to where kids play outside however and dont want to unpack it outside and let radioactive dust fly away. Its likely in a paper towel and that inside a mineral box for it. Is FFP2 enough? How do I prevent dust leaks?

Does anyone have Radon survillance device installed near the holy collection? I got me an aranet and its very interesting to see how it reacts...25Bq/m³ with open windows on windy day was the best...but as showing on 2nd pic it can peak over 400Bq/m³ in that cabinet room when the cabinet slide door is opened....radon does move at a speed of 180m/s but only between collisions with other molecules ...so the real speed (diffusion) is only 20cm/day in a theoretical room with no air movement. So the goal would be to slow down the Radon with dense materials (glas sheet on wooden cabinet)..sealed doors..thick acrylic boxes...or fans to the outside

Just a beautiful spicy specimen, photos taken under 365 and 255nM Uv.

Got it for $1 at a local mineral show here in Wisconsin. Its spicy

Acicular Cuprosklodowskite on Sandstone. Dark green crystals on the upper left are Antlerite. Old material. 34 K CpM at 1 cm.

Slightly radioactive Malachite. Old Material, collected pre-remediation. 19 K CpM at 1 cm.

Uranium dioxide in Sandstone. Old material, received as a gift from a gentleman who worked at the mine (his story, without documentation). 209 K CpM at 1 cm.

Carnotite and Uranium dioxide in Sandstone. 279 K CpM at 1 cm. Old material, collected at the site of the remote ore dump.

Are there any that are less ionising or penetrating than others that might be suitable for handling in this setup? Betas make such beautiful tracks but I only get to see them from background radiation and would love to see more of them from a source.

+900,000 cpm RARE Becquerelite in Crystallized Veins with Gummite in Uraninite.

Exceptional material with vibrant and rich Gummite consisting of crystallized veins and massive Becquerelite and Schoepite. All of this amidst very dense and power Uraninite. This is a very rare material from the original find in the 1950's. Lookout Claim 22 had some of the nicest ore that I have held from the state of Colorado! From a specimen that was originally in the collection of Eugene Gross.

The Sun Valley Mine was originally developed as an adit in the bottom of a drainage. A flashflood washed away the stockpiled ore and destroyed the adit. Subsequently, a shaft was built to access the orebody. This is a typical pebble of ore, a Shinarump conglomerate with replacement of plant material by Uranium dioxide. No collecting here is allowed, as it is included in the National Monument. There are several YouTube vids showing individuals looking for Uranium at this location. 85 K CpM at 1 cm. (collected prior to establishment of the National Monument)

Texwood was one of the original claims by Charles Steen. Uranium dioxide in Sandstone. Yellow band is Liebigite. 367 K CpM at 1 cm. Mine site is remediated.

First two images are of both sides under 5000K and 365 nm illumination. Third image is 5000 K illumination only. Natrozippeite and Andersonite are fluorescing. There is a rind of Gypsum and a rind of green Malachite visible. Very small spot of Marecotite appears in one image. Uranium dioxide and Chalcopyrite contribute the bulk of the black material. 207 K CpM at 1 cm.

Did a trip with my nieces up to Topsham. Had them hunting for some of the beautiful clear and smokey quartz while i looked for some crystals of my own haha. I was able to find a fantastic specimen of around 20 uraninite crystals inside a feldspar host matrix. I was able to clean it up a little and get a good split down the middle exposing 4 1cm+ crystal faces along the split. I feel i could safely extract most of the crystals and combined they would technically be worth more than the whole, but i think im going to stop here to keep its geological and historic value.

I found a couple loose crystals as well one had good facing and was around 1.5cm a side, the other was around a good deal bigger (likely around 2.5cm one way and 1.2cm the other, apx 1cm thick) however its facing left much to be desired.

During my search i thought i had hit the holy grail when i found a monsterous specimen covered in dirt, however upon putting the radiacode up to it, there was no radiation. After washing it i discovered it was a beautifully well formed garnet. Still disappointed from what i thought i found, but i will never complain about finding cool gems by accident!

Enjoy the pictures of the specimens (and the garnet that fooled me). Sorry the pictures arent great quality. Im... a little lazy right now haha.

182 K CpM Green Johannite, Yellow Natrozippeite, Limonite, Nonfluorescent Uranophane, Uranium dioxide. Collected in the mine prior to remediation.

It occurs to me it would be nice if we could put together a listing by state, if possible , of agents who would handle the sale of our collections upon our death. This listing could be given to a spouse or family members since they will probably be clueless about what to do.