Authors / CoAuthors
Jaireth, S. | Schofield, A. | Lambert, I.
Abstract
Australia has a rich uranium endowment. Amongst other favourable geological conditions for the formation of uranium deposits, such as the presence of intracratonic sedimentary basins, Australia is host to widespread uranium-rich felsic igneous rocks spanning a wide range of geological time. Many known uranium deposits have an empirical spatial relationship with such rocks. While formation of some mineral systems is closely associated with the emplacement of uranium-rich felsic magmas (e.g., the super-giant Olympic Dam deposit), most other systems have resulted from subsequent low temperature processes occurring in spatial proximity to these rocks. Approximately 91% of Australia's initial in-ground resources of uranium occur in two main types of deposits: iron-oxide breccia complex deposits (~ 75%) and unconformity-related deposits (~ 16%). Other significant resources are associated with sandstone- (~ 5%) and calcrete-hosted (~ 1%) deposits. By comparison, uranium deposits associated with orthomagmatic and magmatic-hydrothermal uranium systems are rare. Given the paucity of modern exploration and the favourable geological conditions with Australia, there remains significant potential for undiscovered uranium deposits. This paper discusses mineral potential of magmatic- and basin-related uranium systems.
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nonGeographicDataset
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73735
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Keywords
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- External PublicationConference Paper
- ( Theme )
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- mineral deposits
- ( Theme )
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- mineral exploration
- Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)
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- Earth Sciences
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- Published_Internal
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2012-01-01T00:00:00
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