Uranium
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Index Periodic Table Chemistry concepts | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Uranium
Another oxide of uranium is UO2, found in the mineral uraninite. Uranium is usually found in the ores pitchblende (U3O8) and carnotite (K2U2V2O12.3H2O). It is also found in the minerals Becquerelite, euxenite and Boltwoodite. Uranium appears in the phosphate minerals meta-autunite , metatorbernite and sabugalite. Uranium appears with lead in curite and kasolite, both of which exhibit orange coloration which might be the source of color in radioactive orange fiestaware dishes. It appears with vanadium and lead in Francevillite. It appears with cerium and yttrium in samarskite.
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Index Periodic Table Chemistry concepts Reference Pauling Ch. 29 | ||||
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Uranium Nuclear Data
Uranium plays a major role in the natural radioactive series on the earth. 235U is the progenitor of the uranium-235 series, 238U the progenitor of the uranium-238 series, and 233U is a member of the neptunium-237 series. Uranium-235 is the most important isotope for nuclear fission. From Evans: "238U does show a half-period of about 1016 years for spontaneous fission, or about 25 fissions per hour in 1 gram of 238U. The probability of a decay is about 107 times as great." The half-life for spontaneous fission for 235U is about 1.8 x 1017 years compared to its a half-life of 7 x 108 years. Uranium is a key to the uranium-lead dating processes in geology, where the ratio found in rock from the Earth, moon and meteorites is 238U/235U =137.88 (Dalrymple, Ch. 3). This ratio is use for developing the equations for Pb-Pb isochrons.
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Index Periodic Table Chemistry concepts Reference Rohlf Evans Ch 11 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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