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GSA Connects 2022 meeting in Denver, Colorado

Paper No. 212-9
Presentation Time: 10:15 AM

THE MINERALOGY, GEOCHEMISTRY, AND GEOCHRONOLOGY OF THE TRIPLE R URANIUM DEPOSIT, WESTERN ATHABASCA BASIN, SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA


DUBINSKY, Adam1, FAYEK, Mostafa1 and QUIRT, David2, (1)Department of Earth Sciences, University of Manitoba, 240 Wallace Building, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, Canada, (2)formerly with Orano Resources Canada Inc., Saskatoon, SK S7K 3X5, Canada

The intracatonic Athabasca Basin is located in northern Saskatchewan, Canada and is divided east and west by the northerly-trending Snowbird Tectonic Zone (STZ). The eastern portion of the basin is host to many world-class unconformity-related uranium (URU) deposits that have been widely studied, while west of the STZ there are fewer discovered URU deposits and much less research has been done on the U deposits. The Athabasca U deposits contain some of the highest average grades in the world; for example, 15.90% uraninite at Cigar Lake with 271,000 tonnes U3O8 of Proven Reserves as of the end of 2021.

The Triple R U deposit is located on the Patterson Lake property of Fission Uranium Corp., at the southern margin of the western Athabasca Basin. It is a basement-hosted URU deposit, with mineralization occurring in highly clay-altered orthogneiss and low-density altered carbonaceous host rock.

Host rock alteration associated with mineralization includes argillization, silicification, and desilicification. During retrograde metamorphism, potassium feldspar and labradorite altered to sericite, and garnet altered to Fe-Mg chlorite. Subsequent hydrothermal and diagenetic alteration formed illite and chlorite, and kaolinite/dickite, respectively. The alteration minerals assemblage suggests that the hydrothermal fluids leached iron from pyrite, garnet, and biotite, and magnesium from biotite to form the chlorites.

Uraninite is variably altered to coffinite with Pb exsolved to form galena. Uraninite and coffinite have been dated using an in-situ U-Pb geochronology method, with ages 900 Ma and 1200 Ma being obtained. These ages are similar to some ages obtained from other western Athabasca URU deposits: Shea Creek deposit (Kianna; ~1500 Ma, ~1300 Ma, and ~850 Ma) and the Arrow deposit (~1300 Ma and ~1225 Ma). These U ages are similar to the ages of the Mackenzie dyke swarm (1270 Ma) and the Moore Lake intrusive complex (1109Ma).

Session No. 212

D1. Recent Advances in Economic Geology
Wednesday, 12 October 2022: 8:00 AM-12:00 PM
Mile High Ballroom 4C (Colorado Convention Center)
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 54, No. 5
doi: 10.1130/abs/2022AM-378655
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