The Geology and Production History of the Tohe Thlany Begay (Whirling Mountain) Uranium-Vanadium Mine, Apache County, Arizona

The Tohe Thlany Begay mine, also know as the Whirling Mountain mine, was developed on an isolated exposure of uranium-vanadium minerals that were located on the south flank of the Carrizo Mountain laccolith, Apache County, Arizona. The host rock was the Salt Wash Member of the Morrison Formation of Late Jurassic age. Due to its isolated location, it was one of the few mineralized exposure in the Salt Wash in the Carrizo Mountains not located and mapped by field parties of the Union Mines Development Corporation in the 1940s [Harbarger, 1946]. Union Mines was a geologic contractor investigating the uranium resources of the Morrison Formation on the Colorado Plateau for the Manhattan Engineer District. LOCATION AND LAND STATUS The Tohe Thlany Begay mine was located on the east side of a point of the Carrizo Mountains known as Whirling Mountain at an elevation of 8, 190 feet. The mine is shown on the Boiling Over Well topographic quadrangle [USGS, 1982] at 36° 43' 45" north latitude and 109° 12' 31" west longitude. When the mine was operating it would be reached by a series of unimproved dirt roads originating from the Red Rock - Oak Spring road (Figure 1). The mine was within the Navajo Reservation. Mining permits were issued by the Navajo Tribal Council and approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), U.S. Department of the Interior. Mining permits could be obtained by individual Navajos only. Permit holders could assign the mining rights to another individual or a company; like the permits, these assignments had to be approved by the Tribal Council and the BIA. Permits were issued for a 2-year period. Land could be renewed for an additional 2 years.Documents in the AZGS Documents Repository collection are made available by the Arizona Geological Survey (AZGS) and the University Libraries at the University of Arizona. For more information about items in this collection, please contact azgs-info@email.arizona.edu)