Abstract
Michael D. Campbell, P.G., P.H., C.P.G., with the assistance of Henry Wise, P.G., C.P.G., will be discussing how the the construction of nuclear power is expanding rapidly around the world, and with an emphasis on the new technology, especially with the arrival of the smaller nuclear reactors (SMRs). The pressure on the uranium-mining industry is ramping up as demand for yellowcake in the foreseeable future is pushing toward historical levels which in turn is pushing uranium prices upward to well over $100/pound soon. But where are these resources found? Uranium resources are found in many places on the Earth, in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Argentina, Peru, Namibia, Niger, Tanzania, and from those areas not likely readily available to the U.S. from Russia and China. But the predicted need is in the range of hundreds of millions of pounds of uranium per year in the form of yellowcake. There are shallow uranium deposits amenable to open-pit mining, and others are available by underground-mining methods, and there are other deposits that can be developed by the in-situ uranium recovery (ISR) methods that are more like the environmental remediation methods used widely in the U.S. and elsewhere to clean-up industrial contamination in the groundwater system than the typical mining methods used in the past. The ISR method has been applied to naturally occurring uranium “contamination” in fluvial sands within aquifer systems located in Wyoming, Utah, South Dakota, Colorado, Alaska, and in Texas. The uranium deposits developed by such methods are often deeper than 300 feet below surface (out of the range of an open-pit project) and generally below drinking water aquifers. By being naturally occurring contamination, such mineralized sands cannot be used for domestic or agricultural water supplies. Such intervals are typically excluded from use by state regulatory agencies over a defined area of the mineralized zones. The areas surrounding the mineralized sands are generally unaffected and would be available as water supplies. The isolated mineralized zones occur in the form of uranium roll-front deposits. The development of these roll-front deposits involves drilling patterns of wells where a pumping well is surrounded by three to four injection wells (located on the periphery of the roll-front introducing fluids rich in O2, CO2, and H2O3 . These fluids would dissolve the uranium minerals among the biogeochemical cell present within the roll front in a slow, but active process of forming and reforming the uranium minerals when encountering a strong reductant in the presence of carbon/sulfide-rich conditions within the sands creating the uranium minerals over geological time. With the addition of the oxidizing fluids, the uranium minerals are dissolved and the solutions containing very low concentrations of uranium (and therefore very low radioactivity) are pumped to resin-processing plant on the surface, the loaded resins of which are then transported by tanker truck to a central yellowcake processing plant for extraction, drying and sale. A ring of monitoring wells is also installed around each withdrawal area of production to ensure that productions fluids have not escaped the production area. These kinds of operations are conducted under strict regulatory control through a rigorous permitting process that describes the proposed operations for all stakeholders. As the need for uranium expands, more of these ISR systems can be expected in the years ahead to be deployed on new uranium deposits discovered in sedimentary deposits in the U.S. and all over the world.
Biography
Michael D. Campbell, P.G., P.H., C.P.G., as the principal speaker, obtained a bachelor’s degree in geology and hydrogeology from the Ohio State University and a master’s degree in geology and geophysics from Rice University. He began his professional career with the CONOCO Mining group in Sydney, Australia where he explored for uranium (making a uranium discovery north of Ceduna, South Australia on the Nullabor Plains, and for phosphate (major discovery in eastern Northern Territory, Australia), and for potash and other minerals. He was transferred back to the U.S. to assist in CONOCO’s uranium exploration program in Casper, Wyoming. After a year, he was recruited to join Teton Exploration, a division of United Nuclear Corporation in Casper, Wyoming
As the price of uranium fell with the arrival of cheap uranium from Russia and other sources in Asia, he departed Teton and was offered to join with Dr. Jay H. Lehr, Executive Director of the National Water Well Association to form the NWWA Research Facility in Columbus, Ohio. He then built a small staff and began work on Pre-EPA funded projects involving intensive research on groundwater development and water-well designs, drilling and installation technology. This led to numerous publications on the subjects, culminating in a text published by McGraw-Hill: Water Well Technology: Field Principles of Exploration Drilling and Development of Groundwater and Other Minerals (which won the Ohioanna Book Award in Science in 1975). Another text was published by the U.S. Commission on Rural Water on rural water supplies. It was at this period that he decided to go back to graduate school. After discussions with four universities, three in the eastern U.S. and one in the warm , deep South. Dr. John J. W. Rogers, Chairman of the Geology Department, called Mr. Campbell to invite him to visit Rice University. After that visit, he came away with a formal invitation to graduate school with the award of the Eleanor and Mills Bennett Fellowship, and also with an invitation to move the NWWA Research Facility and two staff members to Rice University in Houston, Texas to continue his EPA-funded projects with possible employment for Rice graduate students.
After completing his master’s degree, and after a number of publication on groundwater and on uranium projects in NW Texas and Alaska, he was recruited to forego a Ph.D. by a major consulting firm in downtown Houston, where he served as Director of Alternate Energy, Minerals and Environmental Programs of Keplinger & Associates, Inc. Among his other duties, he produced a text: Geology of Alternate Energy Resources underwritten by the Houston Geological Society. The text covered uranium, lignite, and geothermal energy and the environmental factors involved in each resource. He served as editor and author of five chapters, two of which covered frontier uranium exploration. During the period, he served in a UNESCO-sponsored project for a number of investigations on groundwater in countries with widespread hard-rock areas of the world as part of a UN group of international experts with lecturing junkets to Sweden, Sardinia, India, and Tanzania; while returning from Tanzania, he travel via South Africa to evaluate a project near Johannesburg on the way back to the U.S. A major UNESCO Guidebook was the result of his UN activities entitled: Ground Water in Hard Rocks (Igneous and Metamorphic Rocks).
Seven years later, as the price of oil and gas declined, he formed a consulting firm, Campbell, Foss & Buchanan, Inc, specializing in groundwater and mining-related projects, and as a part of the team, raised $6 million for a gold-silver mining operation in central Nevada. After a few years managing the mining project with Dr. Ted H. Foss and after the project was entering a declining price of gold and silver, they departed the project and he was hired by a prominent engineering firm (Law Engineering/Environmental, Inc.) in Houston and soon became the Corporate Chief Hydrogeologist for the company’s 50 offices around the U.S.. After a few years, he was recruited by DuPont’s senior management of the new environmental group in Wilmington, Delaware to serve as the Regional Technical Manager and Chief Hydrogeologist for the company’s Central U.S. Region based in Houston. After a major DuPont reorganization for the purpose of reducing risk by eliminating the environmental group entirely, about which Mr. Campbell had warned senior management years earlier, he left to open a private consulting practice where for some 17 years he served industry and the legal community during which he undertook 42 cases as an expert witness. After that, he joined I2M Consulting, LLC and soon was serving as Chief Geologist and Chief Hydrogeologist in mining and environmental projects in the U.S., Australia, and Vietnam. In 2024, he became President and CEO of The I2M Corporation while concurrently serving as Chief Geologist/Chief Hydrogeologist of I2M Consulting, LLC based in Katy, Texas. He currently leads a team focused on uranium, rare earths, and gold projects, integrating mineral-resource evaluation with hydrogeology and environmental compliance in the U.S. and internationally.
Mr. Campbell has six decades of experience in uranium exploration and in-situ recovery (ISR) and other mining and environmental projects,. Throughout his later career, he has provided senior technical direction on mining and environmental projects, including groundwater remediation, Superfund and RCRA sites, and water-supply and dewatering investigations, often serving as an expert witness. Recently, he published a professional memoir, and contributed three chapters in other texts, two of which covered uranium exploration in the south-central U.S., ISR technology, groundwater and environmental geology, and broader energy topics. Recently, he led I2M’s work on a landmark report addressing the safety, economics, and future of in-situ uranium recovery in Texas while representing I2M in a presentation during an AAPG workshop on alternate energy. For additional information on Mr. Campbell, see his CV (here).
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3/17/2026 |
| When: | March 17, 2026 12:00 Noon Central Time |
| Where: | United States |
| Presenter: | Michael D. Campbell, PG, PH, CPG, The I2M Corporation (Texas), Katy, Texas |
| Contact: | Cathy Duran cld@aipg.org (303) 412-6205 |
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