Monument Valley
A Navajo discovered uranium in 1942 in Monument Valley on the Navajo Indian Reservation in northeast Arizona. The first mine in the district opened in 1948. Uranium and uranium-vanadium minerals occur in fluvial channels of the Shinarump Sandstone member of the Triassic Chinle Formation. Ore deposits are associated with carbonized wood in the sandstone. Mining stopped in the Monument Valley district in 1969, after producing 8.7 million pounds (3900 metric tons) of uranium oxide, more than has been produced from any other uranium mining district in Arizona. In 2005 the Navajo Nation declared a moratorium on uranium mining on the reservation, for environmental and health reasons.
Read more about this topic: Uranium Mining In Arizona
Famous quotes containing the words monument and/or valley:
“Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read and praise to give.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“I will frankly declare, that after passing a few weeks in this valley of the Marquesas, I formed a higher estimate of human nature than I had ever before entertained. But alas! since then I have been one of the crew of a man-of-war, and the pent-up wickedness of five hundred men has nearly overturned all my previous theories.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)