# " THE PETRIFIED RIVER " 1957 URANIUM MINING IN THE WESTERN USA UNION CARBIDE FILM 75674

This 1957 film "The Petrified River" describes the pursuit of uranium prospecting in the West. It details the process of mining in Colorado; beginning with prospectors in the air and following miners down. The film presents various uses of radioactive isotopes at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Uranium is commonly used to generate heat in nuclear power reactors and produce nuclear fissile material for nuclear weapons. The film details the complex process of irradiating food supplies. It is presented by the Union Carbide Corporation; a chemical company founded in 1917. Union Carbide is attributed with developing an economical way to make ethylene from natural gases and liquids leading to the birth of the modern petrochemical university. It opens on the seal of the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines (:08). A plane sweeps over rocky terrain of Colorado, Utah and New Mexico (:17). Ancient rivers cut under the mesa’s containing uranium (:30). This film is from the Library of the Bureau of Mines of the US Department of the Interior (:51) and is presented in cooperation with Union Carbide Corporation (1:04). A brief history of the environment here is featured (1:25). Salt flats (1:45) blanket the land. The highlands of Colorado and New Mexico lay under light cloud coverage (1:57). Cascading waters cart silt and gravel to the flats (2:16). Layers of red and grey rock run across the red mesa lands (4:10) two hundred million years old. The pilots search for petrified river…

- Kind: Film
- Genres: Western, Industrial and advertising
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/75674ThePetrifriedRiver)
- Licence or status: none stated by the archive
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/ia/75674ThePetrifriedRiver?play=1)