Red Canyon Mining District, San Juan County, Utah, USAi

Regional Level Types
Red Canyon Mining District	Mining District
San Juan County	County
Utah	State
USA	Country

The Red Canyon mining district is part of the greater White Canyon U mining area located in remote southwestern San Juan County. The White Canyon area as a whole is credited as Utah’s second largest U producer and the Red Canyon district is one of the largest U producer in its own right. The Red Canyon district is in the southwestern part of the White Canyon area and according to Chenoweth (1993), from 1949 to 1970 the 26 mines of the Red Canyon district produced 520,000 tons of ore averaging 0.26% U3O8 for a total of 2,744,000 pounds of U3O8. Total district metal production at modern metal prices is estimated at $94 million. The district had extensive U exploration in the 1970s during high U prices, but exploration essentially ceased when the market collapsed in the early 1980s. The largest producers in the Red Canyon district include the Daneros, Maybe, Markey, and Radium King underground mines.
The Red Canyon district is on the western margin of the Paradox Basin on the Colorado Plateau. Red Canyon is part of the deeply incised Red Rock Plateau/White Canyon Slope, sandwiched between the Colorado River on the west and the Monument Uplift on the east. The U ores of the Red Canyon district are hosted in the basal Shinarump Member of the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation. The Shinarump Member is a fluvial sandstone and conglomerate deposited in a complex braided stream system overlying and locally scouring down into the underlying Lower Triassic Moenkopi Formation (Chenoweth, 1993).
Uranium mineralization in the Red Canyon district is associated with channel scours and sandstone pinch-outs against mudstone and the grade is directly proportional to the amount of carbonaceous material present (Doelling, 1969). The generally unoxidized orebodies average 3.5 ft thick and range from 10 to 500 ft wide and 50 to 1000 ft long (Doelling, 1969). Uraninite is the primary ore mineral in the deposits. The low-lime ore has a low V content, but commonly contains over 1% Cu values primarily as chalcopyrite (Doelling, 1969). Some mineralization has cobalt-oxides locally associated with the Cu-rich zones. The Daneros U ±Cu property is the only property in the Red Canyon district that has been in production this century. Between 2009 and 2013, approximately 121,000 tons of 0.26% U3O8 were mined at the Daneros. The remaining indicated resource is 20,000 tons at 0.36% U3O8 (Energy Fuels, 2018).