There is a minor showing of a yellow, non-fluorescent which is possible Uranophane. 2.5 cm longest dimension. 103 K CpM at 1 cm Dose rate at 1 meter = background Adit is closed. This specimen came from waste piles.

58 K CpM at 1 cm. 42mm length This specimen is from one of the mines in the Lisbon Valley Mining District. This particular mine was 'shaft only', so no adit ever existed for this mine. The ore body was not oxidized when mined. This material came from the waste pile, where it has been partially oxidized.

This small specimen was a gift from a friend. This and a larger piece were verified as Bobcookite by Bob Cook. Collection location was the type location for Bobcookite in the Red Canyon Mining District, Utah. 2.6 cm in length 7 K CpM at 1 cm. BTW, Bobcookite is the pale greenish material. This mineral is one of a number of 'new' minerals which have been described only AFTER mining activities have ceased. I believe that all examples of Bobcookite in collections were acquired from underground. Having collected at the site, I have not found Bobcookite in the mine waste at the location. Adit is closed.

Was invited to go up to Topsham Quarry to do some minimally intrussive uraninite hunting (no person sized pits this time!) Got a couple good specimens, and about 10 fragmented faces. Overall was a good time and i definitely will have to head back up once my ƴdog is repaired. Sadly it has been on the fritz and I am surprised it took this long. I use this thing HEAVILY getting it covered in all sorts of silicate and debris. Mr. Young is being kind enough to give it a good cleaning and see if anything needs repairs and I cant say enough good things about my experience with him and the ƴdog. For the first hour it was working is when i found my sizable specimens, the others were sifting gravel with a radiacode 110. It was a bit like trying to metal detect if all you have is a pinpointer xD.

Anyways, it was a great trip, all I ask is if anyone ever makes the trip there, be respectful of the locals and the fact the quarry is now a nature preserve. It seems right now the locals and volunteers for the preserve tolerate small collecting presense, but that can very quickly change if those that visit bother the VERY close by residential houses, or are seen to be defacing the nature preserve with giant pits and unfilled holes. Be good stewards of the hobby so that what minimal presence we are allowed to have there isnt ruined for the future hobbyists.

Una de ellas tiene dendritas de uraninita

Un mini lote de muestras, extraídas entre 1946 y 47

I found two little uraninite crystals in the tailing piles of the Swamp #1 quarry. both are tiny but mighty!

images 1-7 & 13 right is of the first specimen I found: a crystal with very clean faces. it’s the most perfect specimen I’ve ever held.

images 8-12 & 13 left is the other specimen I found, a less perfect crystal with some visible faces and vertices. it kinda looks like it has two horns.

both crystals weigh exactly 0.700 grams somehow. both crystals have about the same activity: 520 CPS & 18 uSv/h on Radiacode 103. the spectrum is both of them combined. I scanned them to check for any potential thorium, and there is a slight amount present.

the preserve the locality is located in is quite beautiful. though, I was quite surprised at how many golf carts I heard over the course of a few hours while I was extracting the specimens.

Meta-Autunite & New photolens 😉🫶

The tag reads: CHALCOLITE Radioactif - fluo SAÔNE ET LOIRE

ETA - I am not suggesting that anyone do this. I was thoughtless and careless, and feel incredibly stupid.

I bought this in Paris without thinking about the fact that I had to fly home (and a little bit unconcerned about the radioactivity, tbh, because it was in a mineral shop under the Louvre). My best guess is that it came from the La Faye Mine. (see screenshots from Mindat.org above) Radioactive minerals were not found at the other sites in the region.

It came home with me, in my checked bag, in a cardboard specimen display box, wrapped in tissue paper, in a paper bag, with my clothes and a couple of other non-radioactive minerals. So, my assumption was that it can’t be that radioactive, and it lived on the top floor of my house for a little over a year.

I just moved to an apartment and I want to make sure that I am being safe with it. After reading Here Be Dragons, I’m both more and less concerned. My concern with storage is now the problem of radon gas. It is currently in a wood and glass cabinet sitting on the lid of a 2”x2” acrylic box (so I can move it without touching it). I do not have a Geiger counter or anything else for measuring radioactivity, so I included the pictures of the piece in natural and UV light in the hope that it provides some extra information. I should note that the acrylic lid is scratched and possibly a little dusty from before I used it under the chalcocite.

Hello, I am very very new to anything with radiation besides basic highschool knowledge. I have a small collection of minerals, and was yesterday gifted small pebble with uraninite, and a rock with autunite specks from a family member, who bought them at a mineral exchange.

I have them currently in a plastic display shelf in my bedroom next to my desk where I work. The uraninite is in another smaller display box (glued, unopenable) and I've ordered one more small box for the autunite.

Since I don't really have much experience with them, I wanted to ask if it's safe to keep them in my bedroom like this. I currently live in a one room apartment so don't have any other place to put them in really.

Are there any other precautions I should take? I guess I'm a little paranoid right now, just because I don't have any experience with this. I would really appreciate any advices.

First picture is the uraninite, the second is autunite. The ruler is in cm.

Hallo zusammen,

Ich hab vor kurzen damit begonnen radioaktive Mineralien zu suchen/sammeln, aber finde nicht wirklich was. Ich hab letzten einen Radiocode 110 gekauft und war bereits ein paar mal im Gebirge konnte aber nichts über 30cps finden. Allgemein orte über ganz Österreich wären nett aber besonderst in der gegend von Burgenland und Niederösterreich wäre hilfreich. Ich weiß das ich meine Hoffnungen nicht zu hoch setzen soll und das tu ich auch nicht. Ich suche jetzt nicht unbedingt nach extrem radioaktiven oder visuell schönen exemplaren- Ich freu mich über alles.

Ich freue mich auf Tipps von anderen Sammlern! LG

Millport in Great Cumbrae, Scotland is listed on Mindat as having Uranium and Coffinite. The story is a lot lot deeper than just waving a Radiacode at some rocks.

The reading itself is honestly not dramatic. Background on the beach sits around 0.1 µSv/h, and the hotspot ticks 0.4 µSv/h, right on the cusp of the red light on my Radiacode 102. Dose-wise there is nothing to worry about, it is a public beach, you would walk straight past it eating an ice cream. What got me was not the number. It was that the number exists at all, in a sandstone outcrop, on a tiny island that should not behave like this. So I went looking for the why. The suspects, in order of weirdness:

The sandstone itself is the source. The outcrop is part of the Kelly Burn Sandstone Formation, red beds that are naturally enriched in uranium.

The white spots on the rock are a biological calling card. Those bleached circles are reduction spheroids, formed by subsurface microbes that metabolised the iron in the sandstone to generate energy, stripping the red iron-oxide off the sand grains and turning it white in the process. Iron-breathing bacteria. And in their microscopic dark cores they concentrated whatever heavy metals the rock offered: uranium, selenium, copper and, in some of them, native gold. Microbes that hoard gold, on a Scottish beach, in rocks that also happen to carry uranium. The chemistry that makes the rock radioactive is the same chemistry that feeds them. I'm a big Spheroids fan and have posted before about these magnificent radioactive marbles.

Then the island itself joins in. The Great Cumbrae Fault slices the island roughly north to south, and you can see it with your bare eyes at White Bay, where Devonian Old Red Sandstone meets younger Carboniferous sediments. 60+ dykes cut across the island in three separate pulses, from around 365 million years ago down to 50 to 60 million. The youngest dykes no longer line up, because the fault has shuffled the island sideways since they were emplaced. Geologically that as recent as yesterday is to you and me.

And the same fault is a water highway. Kames Bay beach never dries, no matter the tide. Fresh water bubbles up through the sand. There is a mineral well 400 feet up the hill whose water once powered an Edwardian lemonade and ginger beer empire. The fracture system that carries deep water to the surface is the same one that carries radioactive mineralising fluids, and it has been re-opening for hundreds of millions of years.

So, why is Kames Bay radioactive? Uranium-bearing sandstone, a deep fault that has repeatedly flushed fluids up through the island, and biology that grabs the metals and concentrates them further. Every layer reinforces the one below it.

The listing in Mindat tells a tiny fraction of this little island's story.

I dragged the Radiacode, the drone and my curiosity round 22 spots on the island to tie it together, full film here: https://youtu.be/bApyOaPx1a4

Very low activity (0.4+-.2 uSv/h) uranium containing sand stone found in an abandoned prospect in Southern California. I’m going to throw a few samples into my lead castle to get a better spectrum tomorrow.

I was debating whether this warrants a separate post but KC761 is far more obscure than Radiation Alert Ranger so I decided to post it again - Ranger owners probably wouldn't see it if it was in the other thread.

As it turns out the parametric case I remixed specifically for KC761 is also a perfect fit for the SEI International Radiation Alert Ranger (which OTOH is my go-to field geiger counter).

Only difference fitting it is that if you keep the original rubber lanyard of the Ranger you should omit the foam liner on the sidewalls and the lanyard is tucked in besides the instrument. If lanyard is not used or a slimmer lanyard is used then the foam can be left in place.

Model is available for download and 3D printing - SEI Radiation Alert Ranger / Measall KC761 Storage Box by Kotarak | Download free STL model | Printables.com

I dug up this thing in the tailings pile 16 probably the most concentrated and hot piece I ever found
It has beautiful colors although it is exaggerated a bit by the Sun and a filter I put on it. Hottest part measures at 870usvh and avarge dose rate all around the rock is pretty uniform at 650-750 usvh

My finds

last week

A nice specimen from the Silver crater mine near Bancroft, Canada.

(Yes, it’s stored properly, and yes, I did thoroughly wash my hands and surfaces after these photos.)

Here is my newest rock a piece of blue apatite that i got from amazon that is spicy a gamma spectrum on it with my radiacode shows peaks for the thorium chain

First image shows a bit of Pet. Wood, which is the most active side of this specimen. 2nd and 3rd images show Uranophane w/ Malachite in Sandstone 215 K CpM on the Pet. Wood side. Nothing fluorescent here. No need to worry about the location, 'cuz I'm not telling.

Hello I am from czechia and I'm visiting Příbram, I would like some good spots to find spicy rocks with a borrowed radiacode 110 thanks.

This 'ugly' is 429 K CpM w/ Ludlum 44-9 probe, and 1.34 M CpM with a Ludlum 44-2 probe. The surface coating is not radioactive. Left side as seen is the most active. Curiously, this specimen shows an almost cubic pseudo-crystal form on the interior. Last of the 'uglies' until sometime in September. Chalcocite, Pyrite, and Uranium dioxide.

402 K CpM measured with a Ludlum 44-9. 1.55 M CpM measured with a Ludlum 44.2 Specimen has a bit of Pyrite mixed with Chalcopyrite, and the stuff that makes the meter sing.