Atomic Legacy: Documenting Historic Uranium Mining in Colorado Plateau NPS Units

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Cold War Era (1945-1991) uranium prospecting and mining profoundly affected the Colorado Plateau of North America, where uranium deposits are naturally concentrated. Recent archaeological inventory in Canyonlands National Park and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area focused on 21 historic uranium mines along with associated prospecting roads and camps. This project supported on-going work by the Department of Energy Abandoned Mine Lands program to verify the condition and potential hazards of abandoned uranium mines, including radiation exposure to visitors. Additional mines and exploratory roads were documented during seven years of archaeological monitoring throughout Glen Canyon NRA. Placing the uranium mining related resources in their historic context was aided by archival research for an administrative history of Arches National Park that demonstrated frequent incursions to the park by uranium prospectors and the construction of a uranium ore processing mill just outside the entrance to the park on the banks of the Colorado River. Uranium prospecting brought national and international awareness of the formerly inaccessible and exotic landscapes of the Southwest, opened the land to explorers and exploiters, and left physical and sometimes toxic scars across once untrammeled wilderness.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52613