Characteristics of marine uranium-bearing sedimentary rocks

Chattanooga shale and related rocks of central Tennessee and nearby areas

“…During the 1940's black shale in various parts of the world was found to be notably radioactive (Russell, 1944(Russell, , 1945Beers and Goodman, 1944;Beers, 1945;McKelvey and Nelson, 1950) and to be a potential source of large quantities of uranium. Because the Chattanooga shale, having about 0.004 to 0.008 percent uranium, is one of the more radioactive shales in the United States, the investigations reported here were conducted by the U. S. Geological Survey at the request and with the support of the Atomic Energy Commission.…”

Geology and geochemistry of uranium in marine black shales--A review

“…Papers by Bain (1950, p. 291-292) and by McKelvey and Nelson (1950) summarize the general characteristics of uranium-bearing marine black shales known at the time of publication. The review by McKelvey and Nelson of general associations and probable origins of uranium in black shale served as an important guide in planning and executing subsequent black shale studies.…”

Economic geology of the Keysville quadrangle, Florida

“…In the aluminum phosphate zone uranium shows a direct relation to phosphate, fluorine, and calcium, and an in verse relation to silica (Cathcart, 1956). The correspondence indicates that uranium may substitute for calcium in the apatite structure as suggested by McKelvey and Nelson (1950) and by Goldschmidt (1954). The fact that the ionic radii of bivalent calcium (1.06A) and quadrivalent uranium ( 1.05A) are almost identical (Goldschmidt, 1954) indicates that substitution of uranium for calcium is plausible; furthermore, Altschuler and others ( 1954) demonstrated that much of the uranium in apatite is quadrivalent.…”