Uranium deposits

**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 (IAEA) and subdivides deposits into 15 categories.

## Unconformity-related deposits

Unconformity-type uranium deposits host high grades relative to other uranium deposits and include some of the largest and richest deposits known. They occur in close proximity to unconformities between relatively quartz-rich sandstones comprising the basal portion of relatively undeformed sedimentary basins and deformed metamorphic basement rocks. These sedimentary basins are typically of Proterozoic age, however some Phanerozoic examples exist.

Phanerozoic unconformity-related deposits occur in Proterozoic metasediments below an unconformity at the base of overlying Phanerozoic sandstone. These deposits are small and low-grade (Bertholene and Aveyron deposits, in France).

The two most significant areas for this style of deposit are currently the Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan, Canada, and the McArthur Basin in the Northern Territory, Australia.

### Athabasca Basin

Main articles: Athabasca Basin
The highest grade uranium deposits are found in the Athabasca Basin in Canada, including the two largest high grade uranium deposits in the world, Cigar Lake with 217 million pounds (99,000 t) U3O8 at an average grade of 18% and McArthur River with 324 million pounds (147,000 t) U3O8 at an average grade of 17%. These deposits occur below, across and immediately above the unconformity. Additionally, another high grade discovery is in the development stage at Patterson Lake (Triple R deposit) with an estimated mineral resource identified as; "Indicated Mineral Resources" estimated to total 2,291,000 tons at an average grade of 1.58% U3O8 containing 79,610,000 pounds of U3O8. "Inferred Mineral Resources" are estimated to total 901,000 tons at an average grade of 1.30% U3O8 containing 25,884,000 pounds of U3O8. http://www.fissionuranium.com/\_resources/reports/RPA\_Fission\_U\_Patterson\_Lake\_South\_Technical\_Report\_FINAL\_Feb\_2015.pdf

### McArthur Basin

Main articles: McArthur Basin
The deposits of the McArthur River basin in the East Alligator Rivers region of the Northern Territory of Australia (including Jabiluka, Ranger, and Nabarlek) are below the unconformity and are at the low-grade end of the unconformity deposit range but are still high grade compared to most uranium deposit types. There has been very little exploration in Australia to locate deeply concealed deposits lying above the unconformity similar to those in Canada. It is possible that very high grade deposits occur in the sandstones above the unconformity in the Alligator Rivers/Arnhem Land area.