The Hack Canyon Mines are in the Arizona Strip (the area of Arizona north of the Colorado River), approximately 28 miles southwest of Fredonia and 8 miles west of Kanab Creek, in Mohave County. The first deposit was discovered in the early 1900s and was periodically mined for silver and copper until 1945 and for uranium in the 1950s and 1960s. In the middle 1970s and early 1980s, three additional breccia pipes were discovered. Mining at these three pipes began in 1981 (Hack 1, Hack 2) and 1982 (Hack 3)1 and would go on to produce approximately 742,200 tons of ore which yielded 9,540,000 pounds of uranium oxide2. Uranium mining ceased in June of 1987 and reclamation of all the Hack mines was completed in April 19881.
Sampling of stream sediment in Hack and Kanab Creek Canyons occurred in 2015 and 2018 to quantify transport of uranium and other elements from mine waste that eroded into Hack Canyon in the early 2010s. The mine waste has since been restabilized (click "view activity" under "Soil" below for more detail).
USGS recently (2020) published results of geochemical and mineralogical analysis of ore samples collected from the Hack II mine during the mid-1980s when the mine was operating (click "view activity" under "Geology" below for more detail).
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Click on image for a larger version.
Base map images are the intellectual property of Esri and are used herein under license. Copyright © 2016 Esri and its licensors. All rights reserved.
Activities listed below are scientific research studies occurring at this site. Studies within the Grand Canyon region are grouped by theme and each theme has specific tasks (referenced by task number).
The View Activity button below each task will open a separate window with detailed activity information.
Sources:
1 Otton, J.K., Gallegos, T.J., Van Gosen, B.S., Johnson, R.H., Zielinski, R.A., Hall, S.M., Arnold, Rick, and Yager, D.B., 2010, Effects of 1980s uranium mining in the Kanab Creek area of northern Arizona, Chapter B in Alpine, A.E., ed., Hydrological, geological, and biological site characterization of breccia pipe uranium deposits in northern Arizona: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5025, p. 49-133
2 Ross, D.A., and Moreton, Christopher, 2012, Technical report on the EZ1 and EZ2 breccia pipes, Arizona Strip district, U.S.A.: NI 43-101 Report prepared by Roscoe Postle Associates Inc. for Energy Fuels Inc., 92 p.
