**Author details**

Miloš René

Permian-Triassic anticline of the Mecsek Mts. The thickness of ore-bearing sandstone varies from 15 to 90 m. The ore minerals are represented by uraninite, coffinite, pyrite and marcasite. Since 2006, four uranium exploration project areas were covered by seven exploration licences (Mecsek, Bátaszék, Dinnyeberki and Máriakéménd). Only the Mecsek project, where new geological model of the Mecsek uranium deposit was established, remains active. Following recent resource estimate re-evaluation, 17,946 t U is now reported as in situ high-cost inferred resources. Large-scale remediation activities in the area of the Mecsek uranium deposit were

The Central European deposits were the first industrially mined uranium deposits in the world. Uranium minerals, especially uraninite (pitchblende), were noticed firstly by miners in the Ore Mts. area (Saxony, Bohemia) for a long time prior the uranium discovery. The uraninite was in this time found by miners in places with higher occurrence of uraninite, the silver and its minerals disapper. The first occurrence of pitchblende consequently entails trouble (pitch). The German chemist Klaproth in 1789 detected uranium by analysing pitchblende from the Johanngeorgenstadt uranium deposit in the German part of the Krušné Hory/ Erzgebirge Mts. In the nineteenth century, some chemists from silver metallurgical works in the Ore Mountains area, especially in Jáchymov, started with experiments using the yellow uranium–bearing components originated by processing of silver-uranium ores in glassmaking industry. Uranium glass became popular in the mid-nineteenth century, with its period of

In 1896, A.H. Becquerel discovered the phenomenon of radioactivity. His student Marie Sklodowska-Curie recognised that pitchblende has higher radioactivity as pure uranium salts. Later, together with her husband P. Curie, they discovered two new elements: radium and polonium. In years 1908–1933, radium chloride from various uranium deposits, especially from the Jáchymov deposit was produced, for its use in medicine to produce radon gas, which in turn was used in cancer treatment. Later, radium was used for radon production. Highly radioactive mineral waters occurred in some localities in the Ore Mts. (Krušné Hory/ Erzgebirge) and were used to mitigate diseases of movement system such as rheumatoid arthritis, spondylitis, ankylosing spondylitis, condition after orthopaedic surgeries, diseases of peripheral nervous system and metabolic diseases. Radioactive water baths have been applied since 1906 in Jáchymov, since 1912 in Bad Brambach and since 1918 in Oberschlema,

Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann conducted the experiments leading to the discovery of uranium's ability to fission and release binding energy in 1934. Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch published the physical explanation in February 1939 and named the process "nuclear fission". The first use of nuclear fission in nuclear weapons applied at the end of World War II in Japan (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) started the first boom of exploration and exploitation of uranium ores in the whole world. The significant amount of uranium ores for producing the

provided from 1998 to 2008 [31].

16 Uranium - Safety, Resources, Separation and Thermodynamic Calculation

greatest popularity being from 1880s to the 1920s.

**13. Conclusion**

Saxony.

Address all correspondence to: rene@irsm.cas.cz

Institute of Rock Structure and Mechanics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic
