Report issued by the U.S. Bureau of Mines describing the methods and equipment developed at the oil-shale mine near Rifle, Colorado. This report includes photographs and illustrations documenting this equipment.

From introduction: The purpose of this work was to determine the distribution and reserves of pitchblende in the veins. These particular mines were selected because the other mines that had produced pitchblende in the east were either inaccessible, or accessible under such adverse conditions as to make detailed mapping impracticable.

From introduction: The results of U. S. Geological Survey exploration in the Legin group area are summarized briefly in this preliminary report. No additional drilling is planned. The Legin group area comprising nine Government-owned claims, three privately owned claims and adjoining public land, is in San Miguel County, Colo. The area explored includes parts of secs. 28 and 29, T. 43 N., R. 19 W., New Mexico principal meridian (fig. 1).

The objectives of the study were: to evaluate the response of grassland ecosystems to atmospheric change at regional and site scales, and to develop multiscaled modeling systems to relate ecological and atmospheric models with different spatial and temporal resolutions. A menu-driven shell was developed to facilitate use of models at different temporal scales and to facilitate exchange information between models at different temporal scales. A detailed ecosystem model predicted that C{sub 3} temperate grasslands wig respond more strongly to elevated CO{sub 2} than temperate C{sub 4} grasslands in the short-term while a large positive N-PP response was predicted for a C{sub 4} Kenyan grassland. Long-term climate change scenarios produced either decreases or increases in Colorado plant productivity (NPP) depending on rainfall, but uniform increases in N-PP were predicted in Kenya. Elevated CO{sub 2} is likely to have little effect on ecosystem carbon storage in Colorado while it will increase carbon storage in Kenya. A synoptic climate classification processor (SCP) was developed to evaluate results of GCM climate sensitivity experiments. Roughly 80% agreement was achieved with manual classifications. Comparison of lx and 2xCO{sub 2} GCM Simulations revealed relatively small differences.

This report is an issue of the original draft copy of the "Interim Staff Report on Uranium Exploration on the Colorado Plateau", dated June 1951. The original draft copy was only recently located and is being published at this time because of the interest in the contained historical content.

From introduction: The general distribution of known deposits of vanadium-bearing sandstone, which also contain some uranium and radium, is shown in figure 1 1/ and Exhibit A, plate 53. 2/ During 1939-41 the Geological Survey made detailed geological studies of these deposits in the Uravan district, Montrose County, Colorado, as well as preliminary examinations in other parts of the Colorado Plateau vanadium region. In 1942 detailed geological studies were made o the deposits in the Egnar-Slick Rock district, San Miguel Co., Colo.; 3/ the Carrizo Moungains district, Navajo Indian Reservation, Arizona and New Mexico; 4/ the Placerville district, San Miguel County, Colo. 5/ and the Monticello district, San Juan Co., Utah. 6/ Since May 3, 1943, the Gelogical Survey has guided the Bureau of Mines program of prospecting these deposits in parts of Colorado and Utah.

A report pertaining to an exploration by the U.S. Geologic Survey in the southern part of the Uravan district for uranium-vanadium deposits. The explored area is in Montrose County, Colorado. The rocks exposed in the area are gently dripping marine and terrestial formations ranging in age from late Paleozoic to late Mesozoic.

A report about the vanadium-uranium deposit at the Rifle and Garfield mines which lies in the Wingate sandstone and the overlying Entrada sandstone.

Report discussing "field and laboratory studies of ground-water conditions in the carnotite-bearing Morrison formation in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah" with the objective of determining "possible relations between ground waters and the carnotite deposits."

Abstract: During parts of July, August, and September 1951, a reconnaissance was conducted in parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho in search of new deposits of uranium-bearing carbonaceous rocks. One significant uranium occurrence was found, the Fall Creek deposit, Bonneville County, Idaho. Several additional localities were discovered that contain uranium in concentrations many times that normally found in carbonaceous rocks.

None

Report discussing the geology and ore deposits of the Placerville area of San Miguel County, Colorado. "This report is an abstract of a paper with the same title that is planned for publication as a Geological Survey bulletin."

The following report covers a chemical study that was made of the Salt Wash member of the Morrison formation of Jurassic age in the Jo Dandy area, Montrose County, Colorado in 1954. The chemical study was made to investigate the distribution of elements in the host rocks with emphasis on the pattern of variation as related to the position of known ore bodies, and to determine average concentrations of some of the elements in the major rock types.

The following report covers a broad-scale study of the distribution of elements in the rocks and ores of the Colorado Plateau. Discussed here are the results from semiquantitative spectrographic analyses of approximately 800 samples of rocks and ores that form the principal starting point for the discussion. This paper examines the relevance of the results of the study of the distribution of elements to the special problem of the source or sources of the elements contained in unusual abundance in the sandstone-type uranium ores.

The following report covers notes on the Moenkopi formation of Triassic age that is widely exposed in the salt anticline region in the southeastern Utah and southwestern Colorado. Within this report is the mapping of four members of contrasting lithology in the Moenkopi in the salt anticline region.

This report summarizes the US Department of Energy`s (DOE) cultural resource studies that were undertaken in support of the DOE`s Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project in the state of Colorado for the period of October 1, 1991, through September 30, 1992. This report fulfills the DOE`s obligation to provide an annual report to the state of Colorado on the status and results of cultural resource studies conducted during the above period of record. This requirement is stated in a programmatic memorandum of agreement executed between the DOE, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and the Colorado State Historic Preservation Officer in December 1984. Previous reports were based on a calendar year reporting period. However, in order to be more consistent with the programmatic memorandum of agreement, the period of record for this and subsequent annual reports has been changed to the Federal fiscal year. The current status and summaries of 1992 cultural resource surveys are provided for all UMTRA Project sites in Colorado. The sites are Durango, Grand Junction, Gunnison, Maybell, Naturita, Rifle, and Slick Rock.

We proposed to demonstrate the effectiveness of a catalytic membrane reactor (a ceramic membrane combined with a catalyst) to selectively produce methanol by partial oxidation of methane. Methanol is used as a chemical feedstock, gasoline additive, and turbine fuel. Methane partial oxidation using a catalytic membrane reactor has been determined as one of the promising approaches for methanol synthesis from methane. In the original proposal, the membrane was used to selectively remove methanol from the reaction zone before carbon oxides form, thus increasing the methanol yield. Methanol synthesis and separation in one step would also make methane more valuable for producing chemicals and fuels. The cooling tube inserted inside the membrane reactor has created a low temperature zone that rapidly quenches the product stream. This system has proved effective for increasing methanol selectivity during CH{sub 4} oxidation. The membranes broke during experiments, however, apparently because of the large radial thermal gradient and axial thermal expansion difference. Our efforts concentrated on improving the membrane lifetime by modifying this non-isothermal membrane reactor.

Title 1 of the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA) of 1978, Public Law (PL) 95-604, authorized the US Department of Energy (DOE) to perform remedial action at the inactive Naturita, Colorado, uranium processing site to reduce the potential health effects from the radioactive materials at the site and at vicinity properties associated with the site. Title 2 of the UMTRCA authorized the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) or agreement state to regulate the operation and eventual reclamation of active uranium processing sites. The uranium mill tailings at the site were removed and reprocessed from 1977 to 1979. The contaminated areas include the former tailings area, the mill yard, the former ore storage area, and adjacent areas that were contaminated by uranium processing activities and wind and water erosion. The Naturita remedial action would result in the loss of 133 acres (ac) of contaminated soils at the processing site. If supplemental standards are approved by the NRC and the state of Colorado, approximately 112 ac of steeply sloped contaminated soils adjacent to the processing site would not be cleaned up. Cleanup of this contamination would have adverse environmental consequences and would be potentially hazardous to remedial action workers.

From introduction: This report describes work done in the Trinidad, Colorado, National Topographic Map Series (NTMS) quadrangle (US Geological Survey, 1955) by the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) as part of the nationwide Hydrogeochemical and Stream Sediment Reconnaissance (HSSR).

From summary: This data release presents analytical results obtained for a pilot study being done in portions of the Sterling and Greeley, Colorado, National Topographic Map Series (NTMS) quadrangles (Fig. 1) by the University of Colorado under contract to the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) as part of the nationwide Hydrogeochemical and Stream Sediment Reconnaissance (HSSR).

From abstract: "This study used Landsat images and small-scale color and color-infrared photographs for selected geologic, hydrologic, and land-use applications within the Yampa River Basin" in Colorado and Wyoming. It includes maps, tables, and a glossary.

"This report describes the geologic and hydrologic characteristics of the ore-bearing sandstone as determined in the core samples from three diamond drill holes on calamity Mesa, Mesa County, Colorado, and correlates these data with localized gamma-ray activity detected in three drill holes."

A preliminary statement regarding Reserve Block 2 of Club Mesa, located in Montrose County, Colorado.

A preliminary reserve statement regarding Reserve Block A of the Spring Creek Mesa Area, located in Montrose County, Colorado.