6 Potential Environmental Effects of Uranium Mining ...
Although 90-95 percent of the uranium in the ore is extracted during processing (thus reducing uranium concentrations by at least an order of magnitude), most of the uranium decay products (e.g., 230 Th, 226 Ra, 222 Rn), which may comprise the majority of the total radioactivity of the ore, stay in the tailings (Hebel et al., 1978, Van Metre ...