Mines, uranium

Care must be taken in handling radon, as with other radioactive materials. The main hazard is from inhalation of the element and its solid daughters which are collected on dust in the air. Good ventilation should be provided where radium, thorium, or actinium is stored to prevent build-up of the element. Radon build-up is a health consideration in uranium mines. Recently radon build-up in homes has been a concern. Many deaths from lung cancer are caused by radon exposure. In the U.S. it is recommended that remedial action be taken if the air in homes exceeds 4 pCi/1. 

Nuclear reactor accidents d d Pesticides d Uranium mining d Asbestos d PCBs Nuclear weapons... 

Uranium Information Centre, Ltd. (1998). World Uranium Mining. Melbourne Author. 

Naturally occurring uranium mined today contains 99.28% U and 0.72% U. This is too low a... 

The presence of radiation in the workplace - which is an inevitable consequence of the radioactivity of uranium - requires that additional safety precautions be taken over and above those observed in other similar workplaces. There are generally three sources from which radiation exposure may occur (i) radiation emitted from uranium ore in-situ and/or during handling (ii) airborne radiation resulting from the decay of radon gas released from the ore and uranium dust and (iii) contamination by ore dust or concentrate. Radiation levels around uranium mining and milling facilities are quite low - for the most part only a few times the natural background levels - and they decrease rapidly as the distance from... 

Theoretical unattached fractions of RaA using average aerosol concentrations and count median diameters as found in track and trackless Canadian uranium mine are presented in Table III. The reported uranium mine aerosol properties are N 120,000 particles/cm3 and CMD = 0.069 ym for a trackless mine and N =... 

The Rn-222 concentrations in the soil gas, fumarolic gas, atmosphere, and in the underground water have been measured extensively for the studies of seismology, uranium mining, environmental science and geochemistry. It has been known that its concentrations are often very high in fumarolic gases and in the underground water, the reason for which is, however, not clarified yet. 

Busigin, A., A.W. van der Vooren and C.R. Phillips, Measurement of the Total and Radioactive Aerosol Size Distributions in a Canadian Uranium Mine, Amer. Ind. Hyg. Assoc. J. 42 310-314 (1981). 

Cooper, J.A., P.0. Jackson, J.C. Langford, M.R. Peterson and B.O. Stuart, Characteristics of Attached Rn-222 Daughters under both Laboratory and Field Conditions with Particular Emphasis upon Underground Uranium Mine Environments, Batelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories, 1973. 

George, A.C., L. Hinchliffe and R. Sladowski, Size Distribution of Radon Daughter Particles in Uranium Mine Atmospheres, HASL-326, 1977. 

Khan, A. and C.R. Phillips, A Simple Two-Count Method for Routine Monitoring of Radon and Thoron Progeny Working Levels in Uranium Mines, Health Phys. 50 381-388 (1986). 

Stein, L., Shearer, J. A., Hohorst, F. A., and Markun, F., Development of a Radiochemical Method for Analyzing Radon Gas in Uranium Mines, Report USBM-H0252019, prepared for the U. S. Bureau of Mines by Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, January 1977, 78 pp. 

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