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Media General News Service
Published: April 18, 2009
A Virginia Tech geologist recently was awarded a $60,000 grant to study the Coles Hill uranium deposit in Pittsylvania County near Chatham.
The grant, a mineral research grant from the U.S. Geological Survey, is the first one from the federal government to study this particular deposit and will be for “a very focused study to determine the age of the uranium mineralization,” Robert Bodnar, a geochemistry professor at Tech, said.
Uranium and other ore deposits are formed over millions of years as water moves through tiny fractures and collects miniscule amounts of ore, which are then deposited in another location, Bodnar said.
By determining the specific age of the uranium ore at Coles Hill, officials will better understand how it was formed and, perhaps, how to find other similar deposits in the region, Bodnar said.
That will be accomplished by taking rock samples to a U.S. Geological Survey lab in Northern Virginia, where scientists will measure radioactive decay to determine the age.
The uranium is geologically younger than the surrounding rock and, he said, “the question is how much younger. They can be 1,000 years younger, a million years younger or 200 million years younger.”
Bodnar, who is one of a handful of University Distinguished Professors at Tech, also is working on other studies of the Coles Hill deposit, which is said to be one of the largest untapped uranium reserves in the U.S. with an estimated $10 billion worth of ore laying beneath a cattle pasture. Much of his research throughout his career has centered on how mineral and ore deposits form so similar deposits can be found, he said.
Bodnar said he has been working on the Coles Hill deposit for a little more than a year. One of the studies, he said, is focusing on the hydrology of the deposit, or how groundwater moves throughout the tiny fractures in the bedrock and ore.
“Those are questions that are critical to trying to understand what might happen if and when that deposit is mined,” Bodnar said.
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Reader Reactions
Mr. Dowdy, if this uranium deposit is mined and there is the same contamination as has usually occurred at other mining sites around the world, you are going to look back on the dump to which you refer and think you were in the Garden of Eden when you just had that about which to be concerned.
At least people are looking at it and trying to make a good decision. In Caswell Co., just 1/8 mile down South Main Street, HWY 86, we have a dump that is on the Federal Superfund Cleanup list. First Piedmont buried tons of chemicals from Goodyear, and the barrels rusted out and spilled the hazardous waste into the water supply. The name of it is the Bryant Farm Drum Dump, and it is hazardous. The cleanup was a sham. BRYANTFARMDRUMDUMP.blogspot.com shows all the details. And it all runs downstream into Pumpkin Creek, into good old Danville. Enjoy it. This is a disaster of enormous proportions that has been ignored long enough. Thanx, Randy Dowdy
I am saying that Walter Coles formed a company by the name of Virginia Uranium which has the sole purpose for its existence of mining the uranium that is in the ground at Coles Hills.
This uranium deposit has been reported in local newspapers to have a value of billions of dollars.
Recently a Canadian company named Santoy has formed a partnership with one of Coles’ companies.
I cannot answer the question as to whether or not Mr. Coles wants, in your words,“to destroy this extraordinary legacy his ancestors passed down to him by mining on the site” but I cannot imagine going to the trouble of forming a company to mine uranium unless one wants to mine uranium.
Forgive me danv for being so naive about this but are you saying Walter Coles wants to utterly destroy the extraordinary legacy his ancestors passed down to him by mining on the site?
The purpose of the uranium mining is to make billions of dollars for Walter Coles and his family and for Santoy, the Canadian firm which recently acquired a substantial interest in Coles’ company.
There is no other reason.
I was out at Coles Hill today for the Garden Week tour. I cannot understand why anyone thinks mining uranium is desirable anywhere given that no nuclear reactors have been built in decades and it seems that none will ever be constructed again in this country. I can’t imagine the USA needs any more nuclear weapons so why do a few folks want to mine this uranium? Where will it be used and for what purpose?
I will just bet he is working on how the ground water moves through this deposit and does not contaminate the two creeks and the Banister River which are close to the deposit!!!!!
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