One Hundred Years of Federal Mining Safety and Health Research

for efficient processing of radium, which at the time was considered to be a promising substance
for treating cancer patients.
In 1916, the research offices were moved to the campus of the Colorado School of Mines at
Golden, CO, near Denver. Mining research at Denver began with the establishment of an oil
shale mining branch at Denver following passage of the Synthetic Liquid Fuels Act of 1944.
The Bureau also constructed an experimental oil shale mine and demonstration plant at Rifle,
CO, at this time.
In 1949, Bureau research near Denver was consolidated in leased buildings at the Denver Federal
Center in Lakewood, CO, a western suburb of Denver. In the 1960s, the Denver work was
expanded with the transfer of the Bureau’s Applied Physics Laboratory from College Park, MD,
to Denver, and the similar transfer to Denver of the mining research laboratory from Reno, NV.
In the 1979 reorganization, the name of this Bureau facility was changed to the Denver Research
Center. The facilities of the Denver Research Center also included the Twilight Mine, a small
leased experimental uranium mine in western Colorado.
Much of the research at Denver after 1970 focused on solving ground control problems in both
coal and metal/nonmetal mines, with the work performed by researchers with expertise in
geophysics and rock mechanics. The Bureau also did extensive research at Denver on methods
for measurement and control of radon progeny—a cause of lung cancer and a significant problem
in underground uranium mines. The Bureau’s experimental uranium mine was extensively used
by Bureau researchers from Denver and Spokane who were working on the radon control
problem.
5.5.5 Mineral Institutes
The Mineral Institutes program of the Bureau was authorized by Congress in 1984 under Public
Law 98-409, the State Mining and Mineral Resources Research Institute Program Act. This law
authorized Bureau grants to universities with substantial graduate programs in the mineral
sciences and engineering. Awarded universities were designated as State Mining and Mineral
Resources Research Institutes (Mineral Institutes). Eventually, 31 universities were designated
as Mineral Institutes and received annual allotment grants from the Bureau for research and
educational programs.
Allotment grant funds from the Bureau were used to support fellowships and scholarships, to
acquire scientific equipment, and to support small mineral-related research projects. The annual
grants were to be matched with two local dollars for each dollar of federal grant aid. The
designated Mineral Institutes were also eligible to compete for research support through the
associated Generic Mineral Technology Center (GMTC) program.
Six GMTCs were established to conduct research in several broad engineering areas of
significance to the minerals industry. Each GMTC was headquartered at one university and had
several affiliate universities designated as Mineral Institutes. Two of the Generic Centers were
involved with research on miner health and safety. These were the Generic Center for
Respirable Dust headed jointly by Penn State University and West Virginia University, and the
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