Lessons from the past
Tracing traces of
uranium
Edited by Leon Louw
The African continent is replete with uranium deposits, and the mining of
uranium has a long history in Africa. However, the price of uranium has put a
damper on the development of these potentially lucrative mines.
T
operations or developments on ice. Africa as
a continent is an enormous source of uranium
and if the price sees an upturn, many very old
uranium operations might be back in business.
But uranium mining is not new to Africa.
Judith A. Kinnaird and Paul A.M. Nex
explore the historical development of uranium
production in an article titled “Uranium in
Africa”, which was published in the August/
September 2016 issue of Episodes: Journal of
International Geoscience. The following is a
verbatim excerpt from that article.
he uranium price has been in the
doldrums since a tsunami prompted
a nuclear disaster at the Fukushima
Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan on
11 March 2011. This has caused many new
uranium projects in Africa to put their
The Namibian desert is a rich source of uranium.
[34] MINING MIRROR MARCH 2019
www.miningmirror.co.za