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A Polished End Cut Slab Showing Uranium Alteration in Motion Some uranium minerals shout. Others explain. Small slabs often carry more information than large specimens. This polished end cut gummite slab from Ruggles Mine proves that point immediately. It is not large, not flashy at first glance, and does not rely on size to make its case. What it does show is uranium alteration frozen in place, with color, structure, fluorescence, and radiation behavior all visible in a sing

A Uraninite Slab, Three Outcomes, Just in Time for a Radioactive Christmas In an earlier post on Tunney’s Pasture, I focused on origin and context. This piece is about what happens after. Some mineral stories start exactly how you expect. A field find. A mine dump. A labeled flat. This one did not. The slab arrived quietly, tucked into a paid order from RadioactiveRock.com  as an unexpected gift. No warning. No note. Just a uranium-bearing slab with visible fracture networks,

Small specimens sometimes tell the most complete stories. This millimeter-scale Mogok thorite with gummite alteration carries the entire history of a radioactive mineral in miniature. It has been heated, altered, hydrated, cracked apart, and rebuilt through time. Somewhere in that process, the ThSiO4 framework began to open and uranium slipped outward to form the bright yellow and orange gummite rind that makes this tiny piece glow under UV. Thorite and gummite alteration min

Botryoidal uraninite from Příbram does not ask for your attention. It takes it. This is one of the strongest naturally radioactive specimens produced anywhere in the world, and the morphology alone makes it a collector's favorite. The Příbram district in the Czech Republic has long been a reference locality for well-crystallized UO2, and the botryoidal habit is one of the most visually striking forms uranium ore can take. This piece combines that rare texture, high density, a

If you spend enough time collecting radioactive minerals, you start to learn which localities quietly glow under UV and which ones behave like they are trying to summon a helicopter. The Markey Mine in San Juan County, Utah,  belongs in the second category. This small specimen of uraninite with secondary uranium silicates  erupts into intense green and yellow fluorescence the moment shortwave UV hits it. It is one of the classic examples of Utah uranium ore alteration , and a

Tunney’s Pasture sounds peaceful, but the name hides one of the most unusual sources of uranium-bearing rock in Canada. The federal government complex in Ottawa once housed an experimental SLOWPOKE reactor and other Cold War science facilities. This is not a mining district. It is not a place collectors can visit. Whatever material exists from the research era is scattered, buried, paved over, or forgotten. Yet one of those pieces survived long enough to be dug up, cut open,