A seminar by:  Nicolas Jules Goffaux at ENSG, Nancy, room G201

On: Friday, 17th of March, 1:00 pm.

The aim of this project is to document the element mobility and understand the structurally and geochemically controlled uranium mineralization and establishing vectoring tools for uranium exploration. The first aim of this project is to build a model of the Mesoproterozoic Athabasca Basin, the unconformity, and the underlying Archean/Paleoproterozic basement lithologies using GOCAD. This first modeling stage is performed thanks to borehole data, geological maps, aeromagnetic maps, and gravity maps. This shows that the basin architecture is influenced by large-scale fault zones, reactivated from the underlying basement rocks, and faults post-dating the basin deposition. The challenge will be to understand the fault network and the geological history of the basin. As soon as this basin model has been constructed, a more detailed analysis of the McArthur River Zones 3 and 4 will be performed. Seismic data, local geological maps and more detailed boreholes will be used in order to create a comprehensive 3D model at the mine scale. In a final stage, geochemical data will be coupled to the model using ioGAS and its link to GOCAD. The aim of this stage (the final aim of the project) is to document the element mobility and associated mass-balance gains/losses within and out of the mineralized zones for understanding the structural-geochemical controls of mineralization and for establishing geochemical vectoring tools for regional- to district-scale uranium exploration.