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

Spatial and quantitative modelling of uranium resources

27 Jun 2018, 16:40

20m

Vienna

ORAL Track 4. Advances in exploration Advances in Exploration

Speakers

Dr Mark Mihalasky (U.S. Geological Survey) Martin Fairclough (International Atomic Energy Agency)

Description

Considerable effort has recently been directed towards enhancing and expanding the IAEA database for world uranium deposits, UDEPO. The database is now sufficiently comprehensive to allow use of the data for a wide range of applications, both spatial (such as global map production and mineral potential modelling) and quantitative. The latter application has been commonly been undertaken for a wide variety of mineral resource commodities, but rarely for uranium, using a variety of techniques including the Three Part Method pioneered by the United States Geological Survey. This, and other methods of using known deposit data to provide insights into undiscovered resources relies heavily upon robust statistical inputs. These include grade and tonnage models coupled with appropriate descriptive deposit models. In combination, these provide an opportunity for more defensible and systematic assessments of potential future uranium resources that assist with answering the questions of “where”, “how many” and “how much”.