ALTERATION RELATED TO URANIUM DEPOSITS IN THE KIGGAVIK-ANDREW LAKE STRUCTURAL TREND, NUNAVUT, CANADA: NEW INSIGHTS FROM PETROGRAPHY AND CLAY MINERALOGY

International audience The Kiggavik project, located 70 km west of Baker Lake (Nunavut), is a major uranium exploration project in the Canadian arctic, with three significant basement-hosted uranium deposits (Kiggavik, End, and Andrew) which spread along a NE SW trend a few kilometers from the south...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Canadian Mineralogist
Main Authors: Riegler, T., Lescuyer, J.L., Wollenberg, P., Quirt, D., Beaufort, Daniel
Other Authors: Hydrogéologie, Argiles, Sols, Altérations E2 – IC2MP équipe 2 (HydrASA), Institut de Chimie des Milieux et Matériaux de Poitiers UMR 7285 (IC2MP Poitiers ), Université de Poitiers = University of Poitiers (UP)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Institut de Chimie - CNRS Chimie (INC-CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Poitiers = University of Poitiers (UP)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Institut de Chimie - CNRS Chimie (INC-CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), AREVA, Groupe AREVA
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2014
Subjects:
[SDU.STU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences
Arctic
Canada
Nunavut
Baker Lake
Online Access:https://hal.science/hal-01009195
https://doi.org/10.3749/canmin.52.1.27
Description
Summary:International audience The Kiggavik project, located 70 km west of Baker Lake (Nunavut), is a major uranium exploration project in the Canadian arctic, with three significant basement-hosted uranium deposits (Kiggavik, End, and Andrew) which spread along a NE SW trend a few kilometers from the south-eastern border of the Thelon Basin. These deposits are closely associated with alteration zones in which clay minerals are abundant. At the scale of the whole structural trend, the alteration paragenesis is composed of illite +/- sudoite +/- hematite +/- aluminum phosphate sulfate minerals (APS). Alteration petrography and mineral paragenesis are similar to those identified in basement-hosted uranium deposits related to Paleoproterozoic unconfornaities in the Athabasca Basin (Canada) or Alligator River (Australia). The alteration haloes are characterized by two similar types of phyllosilicate assemblages (dioctahedral micas or illite and chlorites) corresponding to a regional retrograde metamorphic stage that was overprinted by hydrothermal alteration during the mineralization event. These two assemblages can be distinguished on the basis of crystallographic and chemical properties and mapping of structural parameters, such as the variation of crystallinity along the c-axis or the polytypes of phyllosilicates, which can be used as a vector to mineralization. The crystal chemistry of the hydrothermal phyllosilicates replacing the previous metamorphic minerals indicates a release of iron. This last point is fundamental to the occurrence of hematite in alteration zones and points out the potential effects of the iron redox state in the control of uranium precipitation during the hydrothermal event

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