During the period 1974-83, the uranium industry spent $1.8 billion on domestic exploration, including 264 million ft of surface drilling. Exploration activities reached a high level in 1978-79, and have declined each year since. This effort was largely concentrated in the Colorado Plateau, Wyoming basins, and the south Texas coastal plain where ore deposits were located in the vicinity of producing mines. Significant new deposits also were found adjacent to producing areas, in inactive districts, and in frontier areas. Discoveries in nonsandstone environments in Canada, Australia, and Mexico gave impetus to exploration for similar deposits in the United States. The rapid decline in the uranium market caused many well-planned exploration programs to be cancelled just as th y were getting under way. However, this past cycle of exploration has shown that (1) world class deposits exist in the Appalachians and in the Great Plains, (2) concepts of "mineral belts" are often oversimplified, (3) deposits in collapsed pipe structures are more widespread than originally thought, (4) large deposits can be found in old, inactive districts, and (5) nonsandstone environments throughout the United States appear to be attractive exploration targets. The large amount of geologic information now available from the Department of Energy's National Uranium Resource Evaluation Program, and from the other sources should aid in the development of geologic models before the next increased demand for uranium.

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