page_title: Uranium ore
section_title: Uranium minerals
hierarchical_section_title: Uranium ore / Uranium minerals
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Torbernite crstallizzata, su besimaudite - Bric Colmé, Cuneo, Piemonte, Italia English: Torbernite, crystals on besimaudite - Bric Colmé, Cuneo, Piemonte, Italy
context_page_description: Uranium ore deposits are economically recoverable concentrations of uranium within the Earth's crust. Uranium is one of the more common elements in the Earth's crust, being 40 times more common than silver and 500 times more common than gold. It can be found almost everywhere in rock, soil, rivers, and oceans. The challenge for commercial uranium extraction is to find those areas where the concentrations are adequate to form an economically viable deposit. The primary use for uranium obtained from mining is in fuel for nuclear reactors.
  Globally, the distribution of uranium ore deposits is widespread on all continents, with the largest deposits found in Australia, Kazakhstan, and Canada. To date, high-grade deposits are only found in the Athabasca Basin region of Canada.
  Uranium deposits are generally classified based on host rocks, structural setting, and mineralogy of the deposit. The most widely used classification scheme was developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency and subdivides deposits into 15 categories.
context_section_description: The primary uranium ore mineral is uraninite (UO₂) (previously known as pitchblende). A range of other uranium minerals can be found in various deposits. These include carnotite, tyuyamunite, torbernite and autunite. The davidite-brannerite-absite type uranium titanates, and the euxenite-fergusonite-samarskite group are other uranium minerals.
  A large variety of secondary uranium minerals are known, many of which are brilliantly coloured and fluorescent. The most common are gummite (a mixture of minerals), autunite (with calcium), saleeite (magnesium) and torbernite (with copper); and hydrated uranium silicates such as coffinite, uranophane (with calcium) and sklodowskite (magnesium).
caption: Torbernite, an important secondary uranium mineral
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