Deposit types/Uranium, Gold

Unconformity-related uranium

Uranium as pitchblende in breccias and fractures close to an ancient erosion surface under younger sandstone.

What it is

Uranium as pitchblende in breccias and fractures close to an ancient erosion surface under younger sandstone.1

How it forms

Uranium collected in basement rocks and basal sandstone around a Proterozoic unconformity, after metamorphism, weathering and later fluid remobilisation.1

Host rocks

Carbonaceous pelites, psammites and carbonate rocks with younger quartz arenite.1

Where it forms

Stable intracratonic basins on the flanks of Archean domes.1

How old

Early to Middle Proterozoic (1,800 to 1,200 Ma)1

Mines of this type

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Story cards

Where next

Mines

An example ofCigar LakeSee Cigar Lake, an example of this deposit type.1An example ofMcArthur River / Key LakeSee McArthur River / Key Lake, 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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Stories with these minerals

Uranium drill-hole columns over the Athabasca Basin on a satellite map of SaskatchewanData storyUnder SaskatchewanDrill holes · SaskatchewanHistory of miningUranium: from silver mine waste to the atomic age1789-2025Lessons from historyFrom discovery to production: the long road to a mine1922-2027The Super Pit gold mine at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, at sunsetMining historyGold rushes, then and nowGold and lithium · Worldwide

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0. 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); Elektrisk malmletning. Undersökningar på Billiton, 1920., Okänd / Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0).