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  3. Mineral Resource Data System (MRDS)

Shirley Basin Uranium District

Past Producer in Carbon county in Wyoming, United States with commodity Uranium
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Sections on this page
  1. Identification information
  2. Geographic coordinates
  3. Site location context
  4. Geographic areas
  5. Public Land Survey System information
  6. Commodities
  7. Materials information
  8. Mineral occurrence model information
  9. Host and associated rocks
  10. Nearby scientific data
  11. Economic information about the deposit and operations
  12. Mining district
  13. Production statistics
  14. Reserves and resources
  15. Bibliographic references
  16. General comments
  17. Reporter information

Geologic information

Identification information

Deposit ID 10400479
Record type District
Mineralized Area Shirley Basin uranium area
Current site name Shirley Basin Uranium District
Alternate or previous names Shirley Basin uranium area, Shirley Basin Uranium Mining District

Comments on the site identification

  • Includes many properties including those owned by Cameco, Petrotomics, and Uranium Energy Corp.
  • Kerr-McGee Corp. Pit shown on Fig. 25 of PP-745 is not mentioned by this name in any of the other literature. Uncertain what this mine is.

Geographic coordinates

Point of reference Centroid
Geographic coordinates: -106.23714, 42.3344 (WGS84)
Location accuracy 10000(meters)
Relative position Uranium area is in the extreme NE corner of Carbon County. Most of the mines have been completely reclaimed.

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Carbon(county)

Wyoming(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Moss Agate Reservoir(quadrangle 1:24,000 scale)

Shirley Basin(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Casper(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Little Medicine Bow(hydrologic unit)

North Platte(hydrologic accounting unit)

North Platte(hydrologic subregion)

Missouri(hydrologic region)

Federal lands

Bureau of Land Management(Bureau of Land Management WY)

Bureau of Land Management WY BLM(Type of land area)

BLM(Federal land areas administered by BLM)

Geographic areas

Country State County
United States Wyoming Carbon

Public Land Survey System information

Meridian Township Range Section Fraction State
6th Principal 026-028N 077-080W Wyoming

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Uranium Primary

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Uraninite Ore

Mineral occurrence model information

Model code 204
USGS model code 30c
Deposit model name Sandstone U

Host and associated rocks

  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Sedimentary Rock > Sandstone
    Rock type qualifier gray, medium to coarse grained, arkosic sandstone.
    Rock unit name Wind River Formation
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Eocene
    Stratigraphic age (oldest) Eocene

Nearby scientific data

Centroid (1) -106.23714, 42.3344
ListMap

Economic information

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Past Producer
Commodity type E
Significant Yes
Discovery year 1955

Mining district

District name Shirley Basin uranium area

Production statistics

  • Year 1974
    Period 1974
    Material "430,000 tons (no mention of what type of tons) were processed in the Shirley Basin District. Reserves are significant." (Minobras, 1976, p. 23)
    Ore mined 390089mt
  • Year 2010
    Material 18,080,489 tons ore from 7 mines
    Ore mined 16402343.71mt

Comments on the production information

  • According to the values reported on MS-94 (Gregory and others, 2010), the 7 productive mines in the district produced a total of 18,080,489 tons of ore (not uranium). There is no mention of the ore grade, therefore total contained uranium can not be estimated. Productive mines: Pathfinder-Shirley Basin (7,170,586 tons), Night Owl (93 tons, small relative to the others in the area, but this is just east of the district), Uranium Supply-Jenkins (528,582 tons), North Walker (740,117 tons), South Walker (264,000 tons), Getty Oil-Petrotomics (9,372,211 tons), Nall (4,900 tons).

Reserves and resources

  • Type In-situ
    Estimate year 1976
    Remarks "Individual ore bodies vary in size from a few hundred to a few thousand tons. Ore mined reportedly are highgrade, ranging from 0.2 to 0.6% U3O8." (Minobras, p. 24.)
  • Type In-situ
    Estimate year 2010
    Demonstrated 1727400mt
    Inferred 508000mt
    Remarks 1,727,400 mt measured + indicated @ 0.12% = 4,569,918 lbs. contained U3O8. 508,000 mt @ 0.1% = 1,119,948 lbs contained U3O8.

Comments on the reserve resource information

  • Dahlkamp (p. 176) says, "Uranium deposits occur in the central part of the basin. They contained original resources of more than 47,000 t U at grades ranging from <0.07 to 0.5% U."

Reference information

Bibliographic references

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit Dahlkamp, 2010, p. 179: "Ore bodies group in an area some 15 km in length and up to 5 km in width in the central part of the Sirley Basin. Major ore bodies lie at depths between 50 and 100 m at the edges of the earlier mentioned two oxidzed sandstone tongues."

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 2010-12-10 Wilson, Anna B. U.S. Geological Survey

Beyond USGS

Supplemental information added by qvyshift.com. Not part of the original USGS MRDS record.

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