Deposit types/Uranium

Sandstone-hosted (roll-front) uranium

Uranium oxides in permeable sandstone, in tabular bodies or crescent-shaped rolls.

What it is

Uranium oxides in permeable sandstone, in tabular bodies or crescent-shaped rolls.1

How it forms

Uranium oxides and silicates were deposited during diagenesis in reduced pockets of sandstone, and some were moved by groundwater to the boundary between oxidised and reduced ground.1

Host rocks

Feldspathic or tuffaceous sandstone with mudstone above and below.1

Where it forms

Stable platforms and foreland basins next to uplifts.1

How old

Most deposits Devonian and younger; roll fronts mainly Tertiary1

Mines of this type

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Mines

An example ofInkaiSee Inkai, an example of this deposit type.1

Sources

  1. Mineral Deposit Models (Bulletin 1693, Cox and Singer, eds., 1986) US Geological Survey

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0; Chuquicamata from the ISS by Alexander Gerst (ESA), CC BY-SA 2.0. Pictures: The laboratories of Marie and Pierre Curie, Paris: room where experiments on uranium ore took place. Photograph, ca. 1900., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0).