In the United States, sandstone-hosted ore deposits of the Paradox Basin (Colorado Plateau) are major resources of uranium and vanadium, two metals important to green energy among other applications. Despite historic and current mining interest, and their significance as major domestic resources of critical elements, the geometallurgy of these deposits has received little study. This article documents the geometallurgy and process mineralogy of the U-V ores and identifies the principal barriers to optimal recovery by acid leaching.

Most of the metals occur as pitchblende (mixed uranium oxide-silicate), V-hydroxides, V-bearing phyllosilicates, and diverse vanadates of U, Pb, Cu, and other metals. Commercial extraction is by two-stage heated tank leaching with H₂SO₄ and NaClO₃, yielding high U but lower V recovery (70–75% in the industrial operation). Laboratory leaching experiments coupled with comparisons of head and residue mineralogy indicate that the unrecovered U consists of micron-scale pitchblende grains locked within quartz and other insoluble minerals. The principal cause of suboptimal V recovery is the V-phyllosilicates, which show variable but generally poor solubility at room temperatures. An ancillary cause is locking of a small amount of fine-grained V-hydroxide and pitchblende by authigenic quartz and V-phyllosilicates. Comparison with other global V resources suggests that variable solubility of V-phyllosilicate ore minerals may also diminish recovery from more common ore deposit types, such as V hosted in black shales or stone coal, particularly in heap leaching of low-grade ores at coarse grain sizes.

在美国，Paradox 盆地（科罗拉多高原）的砂岩矿床是铀和钒的主要资源，这两种金属在其他应用中对绿色能源很重要。尽管具有历史和当前的采矿兴趣，以及它们作为关键元素的主要国内资源的重要性，但这些矿床的地质冶金学却很少受到研究。本文记录了 UV 矿石的地质冶金和工艺矿物学，并确定了酸浸最佳回收的主要障碍。

大多数金属以沥青闪石（混合的氧化铀-硅酸盐）、V-氢氧化物、含 V 的页硅酸盐以及 U、Pb、Cu 和其他金属的各种钒酸盐形式出现。_{商业萃取是通过使用 H 2} SO ₄和 NaClO ₃的两级加热罐浸出，产生高 U 但较低的 V 回收率（工业操作中为 70-75%）。实验室浸出实验以及头部和残渣矿物学的比较表明，未回收的 U 由锁定在石英和其他不溶性矿物中的微米级沥青闪石颗粒组成。V 回收率欠佳的主要原因是 V-页硅酸盐，它在室温下表现出可变但通常较差的溶解度。一个辅助原因是自生石英和 V-层状硅酸盐锁定了少量细粒 V-氢氧化物和沥青闪石。与全球其他钒资源的比较表明，钒层状硅酸盐矿石矿物的可变溶解度也可能会降低从更常见的矿床类型中的回收率，例如黑色页岩或石煤中的钒，特别是在粗粒低品位矿石的堆浸中尺寸。