**History of Uranium Mining in Central Europe**

**History of Uranium Mining in Central Europe**

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.71962

#### Miloš René Miloš René Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.71962

#### **Abstract**

The Central European deposits were the first industrially mined uranium deposits in the world. Uranium minerals were noticed by miners in the Ore Mts. area (Saxony, Bohemia) for a long time prior the uranium discovery. The uranium mineral pitchblende was reported from this ore district as early as 1565. Pitchblende was firstly extracted for production of colouring agents used in the glassmaking industry. The German chemist Klaproth in 1789 detected uranium by analysing pitchblende. In 1896, A.H. Becquerel discovered the phenomenon of radioactivity. His student Marie Sklodowska-Curie recognized that pitchblende has higher radioactivity as pure uranium salts. Later, together with her husband P. Curie, they discovered two new elements: radium and polonium. Research by O. Hahn and its colleges led later to using of uranium as first nuclear weapons. The significant amount of uranium ores for producing of the Russian nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants in the former Eastern Bloc was mined in the East Germany (GDR) and Czechoslovakia. The total production of uranium ores in GDR from 1946 to 2012 was 219,626 t U. In Czechoslovakia, the total uranium production from 1945 to 2017 was 112,250 t U.

**Keywords:** pitchblende, uranium glass, radioactivity, radium, polonium, nuclear energy
