Vanadium Mining in the Carrizo Mountains, 1942-1947, San Juan
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VANADIUM MINING INTHE CARRIZO MOUNTAINS, 1942-1947 , SAN JUAN COUNTY NEW MEXICO, AND APACHE COUNTY, ARIZONA New MexicoBureau of Minesand Mineral Resources Open-FileReport No. 378 by William L. Chenoweth ConsultingGeologist Grand Junction,Colorado and ResearchAssociate New MexicoBureau of Minesand Mineral Resources CONTENTS Page Abstract ....................... 1 Introduction..................... 2 HistoricalBackground ................ 3 Geologic Setting of the Carnotite Deposits ...... 3 Early Prospecting and Leasing ............ 7 Carriso Uranium Company ............. 8 LaterDevelopments ............... 9 TheVanadium Market ................. 9 Monticello.Utah ................ 10 Durango. Colorado ................ 11 U.S. GeologicalSurvey Investigations ..... 11 Leasing and Production History ............ 12 LeaseI-149-IND-3798 .............. 12 LeaseI-149-IND-4225 .............. 13 New Regulations................. 15 LeaseI-149-IND-5465 .............. 15 LeaseI-149-IND-5705 .............. 18 LeaseI-149-IND-6197 .............. 19 LeaseI-149-IND-6342 .............. 24 Manhattan Engineer District Activities ........ 25 Summary ....................... 27 Acknowledgements................... 28 References ...................... 32 i ILLUSTRATIONS Page Figure 1, Index map of the Carrizo Mountainsshowing the location of the vanadiummines that operatedduring the 1940's ......... 4 Figure 2, Navajo minersShadyside area, King Tutt Mesa, SanJuan County, New Mexico, November 1942 .................... 20 Table 1, Vanadium oreproduction, 1942-1947, Carrizo Mountains ................. 14 Table 2, Locationand size of plots, Lease I-149-IND-5456 ............... 17 Table 3, Location, name andsize of plots, Lease I-149-IND-5705 ............... 21 Table 4, Locationand size of plots, Lease I-149-IND-6197 ............... 23 Table 5, Estimated uraniumcontent of the vanadium ores Carrizo Mountains1942-1945 ...... 26 Table 6, Annualvanadium ore production, 1942-1947, Carrizo Mountains. ............. 29 Table 7, Estimated vanadiumproduction, by mine, 1942-1947,Carrizo Mountains ........ 30 Table 8, Value of the vanadium ore and royalties, 1942-1947,Carrizo Mountains ........ 31 ii VANADIUM MINING IN THE CARRIZO MOUNTAINS. 1942-1947, SAN JUAN COUNTY, NEW MEXICO AND APACHE COUNTY. ARIZONA by William L. Chenoweth ABSTRACT Duringthe late 1930'sand early 1940'~~ theU.S. Department of theInterior issued six leases to minecarnotite ores in the CarrizoMountains on the Navajo Indian Reservation, in San Juan County, New Mexico andApache County, Arizona. The carnotite deposits,containing uranium and vanadium, occurred in the Salt WashMember of theMorrison Formation which crops out around the perimeter of theCarrizo Mountains. The vanadiumoxide CV205) inthe ores was recovered at plantsin Monticello, Utahand Durango,Colorado. Vanadium was in demand by thefederal govern- ment foruse in the hardening of steel for war armaments.The operatingcompanies were the Vanadium Corporationof America, CurranBrothers and Wade, and Wade, Curranand Company. Thirty- eightseparate properties produced a total of 21,433tons of ore averaging 2.35 percent V205 andcontaining 1,006,981 pounds V205 between1942 and 1947. These ores had a totalvalue of $390,315.51. An estimated76,000 pounds U308 were secretly recoveredfrom the ores by theManhattan Project for usein the first atomic weapons. 1 INTRODUCTION During the early and middle1940’s the carnotite deposits in the Salt Wash Member of the Morrison Formation, in the Carrizo Mountains, were extensively mined for their vanadium content. Uranium in the oreswas recovered for the Manhattan Project. Very little factual information on this activity has been published, and some is incorrect. For example, a recent paper by Finch and McLemore (1989) states that the ore was shipped to Durango, Colorado, when in fact the majority of thewas ore sent to Monti- cello, Utah for processing. Also, an early report prepared by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission estimated that vanadium produc- tion in the Carrizo Mountains had been approximately 48,000 tons of ore that averaged 2.50 percent V205 (Fetzer, 1948). This estimate is over twice the amount thatwas actually produced. The principal source of data presented here is a detailed report prepared by the General Services Administration (GSA), Indian Trust Accounting Division for the Navajo Tribe. This document (GSA, 1981) was admitted as evidence in U.S. Claims Court, Navajo Tribe vs. United States, Docket Nos. 69 and 299 (copper, vanadium, uranium, sand,rock and gravel claims) held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, February 24-March 4, 1983. A copy of the vanadium and uranium sectionwas obtained by the Grand Junc- tion Area Office of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) , where the author was formerly employed. Details of the mineral leasing regulations, applicable to the Navajo Indian Reservation, were taken from a report prepared by DeVoto and Huber (1982) for the U.S. Department of Justice, which was also admitted as evidence in the above case. 2 HISTORICAL BACRGRODND The discoveryof radium by Marie and Pierre Curiein 1898 ledto the realization that all uranium ores contained this new element.Experiments w # showed thatradium inhibited the growthof certain cancers so astonishedthe medical profession that an incentive to mine theuranium-bearing ores was created. Shortlybefore 1910, metallurgical processes for relatively large-scale recoveries of radium from carnotite ores were perfec- ted. The improvedprocesses resulted in greatly increased demands for carnotite and in accelerated prospecting in southern Colorado. Aboutone gram of radium is presentin every 200 to 300 tonsof orecontaining 2.0 percent U308. Shortly after 1910, thecarnotite deposits in southwestern Coloradoand southeastern Utah becameone of the principal world sourcesradiumof (Tyler, 1930). For about 12 years,these deposits were mined forradium and yielded some byproducturanium andvanadium. This activitylead to prospecting and the discovery of similar depositsin the Carrizo Mountainsof northwestern New Mexicoand northeastern Arizona (Figure 1). GEOLOGIC SETTINGOF THE CARNOTITE DEPOSITS Nearly all thecarnotite deposits in southwestern Colorado andthe adjacent parts of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico occurin theSalt WashMember of theMorrison Formation of Late Jurassic age.In the 1910's and1920's this unit was includedin the McElmo Formation, a name now abandoned.Several carnotite depo- sits were known in the Triassic ChinleFormation, but only a few were mined in the 1920's. 3 DO' Poo' I 36YS' E030' 10d016' I '00 Figure I. Indexmap of theCorrizo Mountains showing thelocation of the vanadiummines that operated in the 1940's -4- The Salt Wash Member is exposedaround the perimeter of the CarrizoMountains in northeastern ApacheCounty, Arizona, and in the extreme northwesterncorner of San Juan County, New Mexico. The mountainsconsist of an irregularly shaped 68-Ma (Armstrong, 1969)intrusive mass composedof a centralstock and several sills oflight-gray diorite porphyry that have been injected laterallyinto the surrounding sedimentary rocks. The mountains are about13 miles indiameter and rise 2,000-3,000 feet above thesurrounding plain. Pastora Peak, elevation9,420 feet, is thehighest point (Figure 1). On the east side of theCarrizo Mountainsthe Salt Wash Member cropsout as a belt from Red Rock toBeclabito roughly paralleling the Arizona-NewMexico state line;south of Beclabito it rims Beclabito dome. West ofthe dome, a narrowband of Salt Wash Member is exposedon the margin ofthe intrusion. On thenorth side of theCarrizo Mountains there is a largeexposure of the upper Salt Wash Member southwest ofthe Four Corners area. The lower Salt Wash is exposed in a small area at thefoot of the mountains and in separate exposures interbeddedwith igneous sills inthe northeastern part of the intrusive complex. The Toh Atinanticline exposes the lower Salt Wash Member inthe northwest Carrizos at Martin Mesa. The large amountof Salt Wash Member northof the Toh Atinanticline is largelycovered with dune sand, and the lower Salt Wash Member is alsoexposed near the Utah state line. West andsouth of the CarrizoMountains the Salt Wash Member capsnumerous mesas. In the central part of theCarrizo Mountains, discontinuous outcrops of Salt WashMember occur within the intrusive sills. Inthe Carrizo Mountains the Salt Wash Member consists of 180-250 feet of fluvial,light tan to white, fine-grained sand- stonewith interbedded, thin beds andlenses of gray, grayish- greenand reddish-gray mudstone. The mudstonecomprises from 5 to 30 percentof the member. The uranium-vanadiumorebodies are formed by theselective impregnationof the sandstone and adsorption by themudstone and fossilplant material. Orebodies are commonly associatedwith detrital plantfragments in the sandstone. The orebodies are roughly tabular incross-section and irregular inplan. They rangefrom several feet in width to a few hundred feet in length. Thicknessesrange from a featheredge to up toten feet. Small high-gradepods of ore are associatedwith replaced fossil wood. ThroughouttheCarrizo Mountains theuranium mineralization occurs at various stratigraphic horizons in the Salt Wash Member; however,the orebodies are alwaysfound in the lower one-half of the member. The brightyellow mineral carnotite, a potassiumuranium vanadate,has given the deposits their name. Later work by Corey (1956,1958)and S. R. Austin(written communication, 1967) have identifiedtyuyamunite, a calcium uraniumvanadate, and meta- tyuyamunite as the only