Panhandle aquifer mapped for uranium LINCOLN—It fuels both bombs
and power plants, but uranium probably doesn’t come to mind to
many people when they think about Nebraska. Still, it’s here and
a University of Nebraska-Lincoln researcher is mapping the
aquifers and rock formations that may contain it. Most of the
world’s uranium is mined in Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan,
Russia and elsewhere, yet Nebraska has one of the few working
commercial mines in the U.S. where uranium to fuel power plants
is mined. The Crow Butte mine, near Crawford in the Panhandle,
has produced about 16 million pounds of uranium extracted from
local water bearing geologic formations since 1991. The uranium
it mines is present as a solid mineral, which then is dissolved
with oxygen and pumped out. South of that mine, University of
Nebraska-Lincoln Conservation and Survey Division hydrogeologist
Steven Sibray is mapping the shallow High Plains (or Ogallala)
Aquifer. The data he and his research partners have collected
“indicates we are a