Natural Radioactivity

When I was younger, uranium always seemed like some weird synthetic element you could only make with a cyclotron particle collider, and I was surprised to find that uranium, and many other radioactive elements, occur completely naturally and can just be found lying around on good ol' Earth.

Some of the most common uranium minerals are carnotite, which is small yellow flakes in sandstone, sometimes making the entire sandstone yellow, and pitchblende, which is a mixture or uraninite, a black uranium oxide, and a few other interesting elements such as thorite (thorium oxide ore) and occasionally radium compounds in trace amounts.

Some more unusual ores include Autunite, a beautiful green crystal that fluoresces under blacklight, and Gummite, being an orange mineral occuring only in the state of New Hampshire.

These are my samples!