International Symposium on Uranium Raw Material for the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Exploration, Mining, Production, Supply and Demand, Economics and Environmental Issues (URAM-2018)

Unconformity-type Uranium Deposits: A new IAEA technical document

28 Jun 2018, 11:00

20m

Vienna

ORAL Track 3. Applied geology and geometallurgy of uranium and associated metals Applied Geology and Geometallurgy of Uranium and Associated Metals

Speaker

Dr Adrienne HANLY (IAEA)

Description

The IAEA has produced several volumes focussed on uranium deposit types that were the result of several expert-led working groups. In the last 25+ years, since these volumes have been published, there has been considerable research and advances in the understanding of uranium deposits, particularly for unconformity type deposits. Up until 2009, the world’s largest share of production came from unconformity-type deposits and identified resources account for 10% of the world total. They are one of the most economically viable deposit types mainly due to their relatively high-grades in comparison to other deposit types, and warrant a technical document that can be used as a reference to properly assess the potential to discover and exploit these deposits. Currently, unconformity-type deposits are only being worked in Canada and Australia but there are known occurrences and potential worldwide, which should be evaluated. This new technical document will provide a summary on unconformity-type uranium deposits including geology, mineralogy, metallurgy, mining methods, resources, genesis, exploration techniques and other topics that would be useful for evaluation. Users should be able to utilize this document to assess the potential to evaluate the potential to discover and exploit unconformity-type deposits.