Timeline for When and why was the Shinkolobwe Mine flooded and re-opened?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 14, 2018 at 16:07 | vote | accept | DrZ214 | ||
| Dec 7, 2016 at 5:09 | answer | added | congusbongus | timeline score: 4 | |
| Dec 6, 2016 at 23:52 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackHistory/status/806285250997403653 | ||
| Dec 6, 2016 at 22:19 | comment | added | John Dallman | Until the development of nuclear weapons started, uranium mining wasn't a very important industry. The main use for uranium itself was as a colouring for glass. The economic value of uranium mining was for the extraction of radium. Vast quantities of uranium oxide were waste products from that, far more than was needed for glass manufacture. It's very possible that the mine was closed because there was enough ore in Belgium for years of radium extraction, and it was cheaper to close it and re-open it a few years later than to keep it operating. | |
| Dec 6, 2016 at 21:25 | comment | added | DrZ214 | @JonCuster In that case, "When was the mine flooded" and "When was the mine abandoned" should be synonymous. It still leaves the question as to exactly when and why that mine was shut down. It was a huge producer of Uranium and extremely important to the Manhattan Project. | |
| Dec 6, 2016 at 20:40 | comment | added | Jon Custer | A common problem with mines is to keep them from being flooded in the first place (hence Watt and the steam engine). So, once closed and the pumps stopped, it would flood naturally. Speculation based on having a mining engineer for a grandfather (who spent the war in South America reopening old tin mines). | |
| Dec 6, 2016 at 19:46 | history | asked | DrZ214 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |