Moab, Utah, is one of my favorite towns and I try to
make a visit yearly, usually in the fall (nice weather). I first saw Moab in 1967 when it was a sleepy
little town without all of the hype associated with rock climbing, boating, ATVing,
and biking. In fact, it was a town in
trouble with the uranium in a “bust cycle” and potash production only partially
taking up the slack.
Moab is a Colorado Plateau town located on the east
bank of the Colorado River in the Grand Valley and is the County Seat of Grand
County. It was first populated by
permanent (Caucasian) settlers around 1880, mostly Latter Day Saints doing
farming and missionary work. The first “mineral
boom cycle” in the region was triggered by the need for radium and vanadium
during the years prior to World War II.
A few oil wells were producing in the 1950’s but the need for uranium to
fund the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) projects created a much larger boom in
the late 1940’s and 1950’s and brought thousands of prospectors, miners and
merchants to town, including a ‘rags-to-riches” Texan by the name of Charlie
Steen. His discovery, in 1952, of the Mi
Vida (My Life) mine triggered a “uranium rush” to the Colorado Plateau that
rivaled the fabled gold rushes of the 1800’s.
School teachers, insurance
brokers, used car salesmen, and shoe clerks around the nation converged on the
Colorado Plateau to seek their fortune. Even
a group of high school students staked forty claims and later sold them for
$15,000. By the mid-1950s, almost six
hundred producers on the Colorado Plateau were shipping uranium ore. Employment in the industry topped 8,000
workers in the mines and mills. Another
bonanza in penny uranium stock established Salt Lake City as The Wall Street of
Uranium. The AEC had turned the tap and
caused a flood (Ringholz, 2009).
By
1960 Utah was producing in excess of 6.5 million pounds of uranium; however, in
1964 the AEC decided to stop purchasing uranium and the bust cycle was on
(Ringholz, 2009). When I first explored
the region in 1967 one could locate literally hundreds of abandoned, but staked,
prospects. Much of the mined uranium
came from the Jurassic Morrison Formation (~146--~156 Ma; the famed dinosaur
unit). The Morrison “looks like” the
Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formation (~97--~125 Ma) and many uranium claims were
established on this non-producing unit!
It appears that not all of the prospectors had access to Geiger
Counters. In fact, during my most recent
trip I was still able to observe some of the old Cedar Mountain claims.
At any rate, since the 1960’s uranium production in
the Colorado Plateau has waxed and waned several times. With the renewed interest in uranium-nourished
power plants the area has seen a resurgence of new claims.
Today, the economy of Moab is mostly fueled by
tourists. It is the closest city to
Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, and the La Sal Mountains. It is a mecca for bicycle riding and racing, kayaking
and rafting the Green River, rock climbing, and riding off-road vehicles. It is a wonderful place to observe some
really fantastic geology and to do some great rockhounding.
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Collecting locality for cryptocrystalline quartz
along the “potash road” near Moab, UT.
The specimens are common in the near foreground.
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James Mitchell in his Gem Trails of Utah (2006) recorded a number of collecting
localities near Moab but I usually find guidebook listings as a hit or miss proposition
and prefer to just explore the countryside.
One of the “major” side roads” leading out of Moab is UT 279, the potash
road, heading southwest to the mine and processing plant but little else except
open land. The road follows along the north
side of Colorado River and is a beautiful drive. After about 10 miles there are a number of
pull offs with great views of the river.
These areas have a thin veneer of gravel and rockhounders should be able
to gather a nice supply of chalcedony and flint/chert. Most of the specimens are of a gray color but
they do make great tumbling material. I
found a couple of poorly banded agates but nothing spectacular or colorful.
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Collecting locality, and there are many similar
localities, along Kane Creek Road.
Examine the open areas in near foreground for specimens.
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South of the River is a road known as the Kane Creek
Road leading out from the town to Kane Springs and the Lockhart Basin. I suggest a high clearance vehicle for the
road passes over Hurrah Pass. After
about 12 miles the countryside opens up and prospectors may search the areas
along the road for nice, translucent pieces of chalcedony and some banded
material called agate; however, the latter material is more of an opaque
flint/chert with inclusions. I also
found concentrations of chalcedony chips that obviously represented an area of
flint knapping by Early Americans. These
were left undisturbed as Federal Regulations protect such assemblages.
Klondike Bluffs is an area well known to
rockhounders since the ground is littered with white, red, and orange chalcedony
along with petrified wood fragments. The
Bluffs are located north of Moab about 15 miles on UT 191 to Ten Mile Road just
south of the Canyonlands Airport. Turn
west for about 2.75 miles then take the right fork (at the jct. with Old Dead
Horse Point Road) for about 1.75 miles.
If you continue on this road for another couple of miles to the
intersection with Ruby Ranch Road petrified wood is available. Another four miles will bring you to Floy
Jct. at I-70. If you return along Ten
Mile Road turning south at Old Dead Horse Point Road (the first jct.) will lead
you to Dubinky Well and the massive agate, flint, quartz, and jasper
fields. Prospectors could easily pick up
a bucket of specimens in 15 minutes; however, one needs to look a little harder
for the reddish agates prized by collectors.
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Slope
forming Chinle Formation.
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Petrified
wood and cryptocrystalline quartz, Chinle Formation.
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Finally, virtually everywhere the Chinle Formation (Late
Triassic) crops out near Moab (and all over the Colorado Plateau) collectors
have a good chance of finding petrified wood.
Most of the wood near Moab is not a really “good wood” for polishing
large slabs. Some seems OK for tumbling
while other pieces show great structure and make nice shelf specimens.
I have collected at a dozen other places near Moab
and have always found decent specimens of the microcrystalline quartz minerals. The rocks are well exposed and a great number
of the formations, especially Jurassic and Triassic, contain collectable
minerals and petrified wood. And, the
scenery is spectacular. Before you
venture out consider purchasing a state geology map from the Utah Geological
Survey (http://geology.utah.gov/) and
topographic maps from the U. S. Geological Survey, or at least a DeLorme Utah
Atlas from the local bookstore. Do not
travel in the rain, or when rain is expected, and pay attention to road markers
and intersections.
I would have liked to visit with Charlie Steen: It was
$100 million before it was over with, and that was a lot of money in those
days. We enjoyed spendin' it, because that's what money is made for. in
talking about his uranium strike in 1952.
REFERENCES
CITED
Mitchell, J. R., 2006, Gem Trails of Utah: Baldwin
Park, CA. Gem Guides Book Company.
Ringholz, R. C., 2009, Utah’s Uranium Boom in Beehive 16, Utah History to Go: http://historytogo.utah.gov/