The Thorium and Uranium Content of the Enchanted Rock Batholith - 1960

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

Kline published a thesis in 1960 while at Rice University under Professor John J. W. Rogers on variations in the distribution of thorium and uranium within a well-known central Texas granitic pluton and to relate these variations to the petrographic types and position within the pluton. For this purpose, thirty-six outcrop samples were collected from the exposed Enchanted Rock batholith in Llano and Gillespie Counties, Texas. These samples have been analysed for thorium, uranium, and potassium by radiometric methods.

Kline concluded that: 

• The distribution of thorium and uranium within the Enchanted Rock batholith is in large part structurally controlled.
• Abrupt textural variations are often accompanied by local variations in thorium and uranium concentrations.
• The late differentiates of the batholith have higher concentrations of thorium and uranium than the locally associated granites, and
• Thorium and uranium have apparently migrated with the potassium for a short distance into the marginal contact zone.