Speaker(s): Khalifa Eldursi

Date: Wendnesday 19th February 2020 - 1:00 pm

Location: Meeting room, ENSG Bat E, Nancy.

Abstract:

Canada’s uranium production, currently ranked second worldwide and accounting for 17% of the world’s total, is entirely from the Athabasca Basin in northern Saskatchewan. The unconformity-related uranium deposits associated with this basin are among the highest-grade and largest uranium deposits in the world. Many of these deposits were discovered based on an empirical model that uranium mineralization took place near faults crosscutting the sub-Athabasca unconformity, where uranium-bearing oxidizing fluids met and reacted with reducing agents (i.e., graphite and hydrocarbons derived from, as well as ferrous iron-rich lithologies) and precipitated uranium ores. However, after more than 40 years of intensive exploration, this model is facing more and more challenges, and a better understanding of the factors controlling mineralization is needed.