[6] His samples were sent to the University of Adelaide where young Sydney geologist and future Antarctic explorer, Douglas Mawson found the ore to contain radium and uranium.

It also had traces of ilmenite, rutile, magnetite, hematite, pyrite, chalcopyrite intergrown with quartz and biotite, chromium, vanadium, and molybdenum.

Mawson named the uranium-bearing mineral davidite after geologist and Antarctic explorer, Sir Edgeworth David.

[2] Activity recommenced after World War II, with a Department of Mines geological survey in 1944 and exploration and drilling work done in 1946–1947.

In March 1952 the Commonwealth and the South Australian governments signed a cost plus uranium supply contract with the UK-USA Combined Development Agency, initially for defence purposes, for delivery over seven years.

[1][3] Restoration works on the site were undertaken in 1962 and again in 1981 when the tailings impoundment was covered with about 75,000 m³ of material from four adjacent borrow pits.

[12] Approximately 16 separate consignments of waste, including contaminated soil from Thebarton in the Adelaide metropolitan area was deposited there.

A New South Wales government study in 1979 found the incidence of cancer-related deaths by former Radium Hill workers to be four times the national average.

That one ounce of it is equal to one hundred thousand nominal horsepower, and that small quantity would be sufficient to drive or propel three of the largest battle ships afloat for a period of two thousand years; ...It will mean that foreign nations will be obliged to seek from us the power wherewith to heat and light their cities, and find means of defence and offence.."