REMOTE SENSING, GEOLOGY AND GEOCHEMISTRY ON THE GVIII URANIUM MINERALIZATION, GABAL GATTAR, NORTH EASTERN DESERT, EGYPT | ||
| Nuclear Sciences Scientific Journal | ||
| Article 5, Volume 1, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 69-84 PDF (1.12 M) | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/nssj.2012.31039 | ||
| Authors | ||
| DARWEESH M. ELKHOLY; MOHAMED O. ELHUSSEINY; WAFAA H. SALEH; MOHAMED A. ELZALAKY | ||
| Nuclear Materials Authority,Cairo, Egypt | ||
| Abstract | ||
| GVIII- uranium occurrence of Gabal Gattar is located at the intersection of Lat. 27º 05′ 56″ and Long. 33º 16′ 33″ to the south of GII-uranium occurrence. This occurrence is hosted in the alkali feldspar granite of Gabal Gattar. It is dissected by NNE-SSW, ENE-WSW and NW-SE faults and fractures. The granite is strongly altered in the zones of these faults and fractures. This granite is composed of K-feldspars, quartz, plagioclase and biotite as essential minerals and zircon, apatite, fluorite as accessories. The secondary minerals are chlorite, sericite, muscovite and iron oxides. The main alterations along the fault and fracture zones are hematitization, silicification, kaolintiization, chloritization and fluoritization that increase at the zones of intersection.The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) discriminated and mapped the hematitized zones in the studied granitic rocks predicting iron oxides as pathfinder minerals that be helpful in localizing high uranium concentration. The compilated and integrated data as alteration zones, geological and structural features using Geographic Information System (GIS) played an important role in correlating, manipulating, visualizing and extracting the information getting a better result for interpretation and evaluation of this occurrence. The study granite is geochemically, alkalifeldspar granite to syenogranite originated from weakly peraluminous magma of alkaline affinity and of within plate tectonic setting due to crustal relaxation. This granite shows many geochemical characterestics similar to the A-type granite, high contents of SiO2 , (Na2O + K2O), Rb, Nb, Y, low contents of MgO, CaO and Sr and apparently F-rich granite.Radiometric measurements of GVIII U-occurrence show that the study granite records uranium values between 15 and 28 ppm, while the anomalies record uranium values range from 400 to more than 30000 ppm. Surfacial yellow secondary uranium mineralization was recorded closely to the altered hematitized zones. Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (ESEM) and XRD techniques recorded secondary uranium minerals as uranophane and U-bearing accessory minerals as columbite, betafite, zircon and violet fluorite. | ||
|
Statistics Article View: 195 PDF Download: 264 |
||
