FUEL & FUEL CYCLE | INVISIBLE URANIUM
Above: Copper Mountain was first systematically explored for uranium in the 1950s. Source: Wyoming Outdoor Council
Finding invisible uranium
New approaches to historical data and changed strategic priorities are prompting a reappraisal of historic uranium deposits. Is invisible uranium coming into the light?
FOR MUCH OF THE NUCLEAR industry’s history, uranium exploration has followed a familiar pattern: discovery, rapid delineation driven by strategic urgency, production during favourable price cycles, and long periods of dormancy when economics or politics turn unfavourable. In the United States, few sites illustrate this cycle more clearly than the Copper Mountain uranium district in Wyoming. Once a focus of intense activity during the Cold War, the area now represents what some developers describe as “invisible uranium”. Large and well-documented resources but which are economically sidelined resources that sit between conventional mining paradigms and modern regulatory, technical and data-driven approaches. Talking to NEi, Thomas Lamb, CEO of Myriad Uranium,
explains the invisible uranium concept: “It’s something that’s always been there, but because it hasn’t been economic or politically viable, it’s effectively disappeared from view.” The challenge is therefore not discovery in the classical sense, but reinterpretation – bringing historical data, modern standards, and new
36 | February 2026 |
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analytical tools together to determine whether these dormant resources can be reclassified as viable.
Exploring Copper Mountain Copper Mountain exemplifies this challenge. The district was first systematically explored in the 1950s driven by US government demand for uranium. This led to the identification of the Arrowhead deposit, which became the Arrowhead mine. “That mine produced about half a million pounds at a grade of roughly 0.15%,” Lamb explains. “Back then, that was quite significant.” Production continued through the 1950s and 1960s,
accompanied by smaller satellite mines such as Bonanza, which yielded approximately 780,000 pounds (around 350 tonnes) at higher grades, and numerous minor operations producing tens of thousands of pounds each. These early mines tended to exploit relatively discrete, higher-grade mineralisation, including uranium-coated sands and boulders. By the 1970s, the strategic picture had changed. Union Pacific’s uranium subsidiary, Rocky Mountain Energy, in
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