Uranium in the Pine Creek Geosyncline, Northern Territory, Australia

Uranium (Nuclear Minerals) / Exploration, Mining, Marketing, & Acquisitions

Uranium exploration in the Pine Creek Geosyncline was stimulated by the discovery in 1949 of secondary uranium mineralization near Rum Jungle by the prospector J.M. White. This was followed by a decade of intense exploration activity resulting in the discoveries of uranium at Rum Jungle and in the South Alligator Valley. The first systematic mapping survey of the region also commenced during this period. The potential similarity of the Alligator Rivers area to the Rum Jungle Uranium Field was shown by a re-interpretation of the geology as shown on the second edition of the 1:500 000 scale map of the Geosyncline (Walpole et al., Bull. Bur. Miner. Resour. Geol. Geophys., Aust., 82, 1968). All the major uranium deposits of the Alligator Rivers Uranium Field have been discovered since 1970. The present resources (RAR) of the Geosyncline are approximately 289,000 tonnes U308, more than 15 percent of the Western World’s uranium resources.

The papers contained in this volume deal with regional and detailed aspects of exploration, geophysics, stratigraphy, geochemistry and petrology. In addition to the coverage of many aspects of uranium distribution and mineralization within the Pine Creek Geosyncline, vein-type uranium deposits in Lower Proterozoic rocks in other countries are discussed and compared with the Australian deposits. Particular emphasis is given to the Athabasca margin deposits in Canada.

A pleasing aspect of the Symposium was the diverse range of hypotheses advanced to account for the ‘unconformity type’ uranium deposits. It became clear that workers on the Canadian Athabasca margin deposits put much more emphasis on the genetic role of the unconformably deposited Middle Proterozoic rocks than do the Australian workers. Although the Symposium acted as a landmark in the progress towards an understanding of the uranium mineralization in the Pine Creek Geosyncline, it is natural to expect that further studies will confirm or modify some of the concepts put forward here.