Differentiating anthropogenic and natural sources of uranium by geochemical fingerprinting of groundwater at the Homestake uranium mill, Milan, New Mexico, USA

Uranium in Waters of The Southern Colorado Plateau: Implications for the Navajo Nation

“…The ratio of 234 U/ 238 U of waters in the region where the Chinle Fm. outcrops may help determine the influence of a mine by assessing how long water from a water source has been in the aquifer and may help determine its source (Zielinski et al, 1997;Johnson and Writ, 2009;Campbell and Ingram, 2014;Blake et al, 2019).…”

A critical review on the occurrence and distribution of the uranium- and thorium-decay nuclides and their effect on the quality of groundwater

“…Uranium sources, transport, and groundwater geochemistry all affect the ultimate concentrations of uranium in groundwater. Uranium in groundwater can be derived from natural aquifer materials or anthropogenic pollution, including pollution from uranium mining and milling operations, phosphate mining, fertilizer use, or inappropriate waste disposal (Guimond and Hardin, 1989;Barisic et al, 1992;Zielinski et al, 1997;Gómez et al, 2006;Wetterlind et al, 2012;Alam and Cheng, 2014;Kamp and Morrison, 2014;Wu et al, 2014;Liesch et al, 2015;Blake et al, 2019;Reiller and Descostes, 2020). Uranium's average abundance in the upper crustal abundance is modest at about 2.6 mg/kg (Hu and Gao, 2008), but it can occur at very high concentrations in a variety of geologic settings.…”