Abstract
The Maybelle River uranium zone comprises several drill intersections up to 20.9% U3O8 over 5 m, in basal Fair Point Formation just above the unconformity with a paleoweathered graphitic mylonitic zone in gneissic basement. Detailed petrography of selected drill-core samples documents an alteration halo with the following similarities to those surrounding polymetallic uranium deposits in the eastern Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan: massive clay replacement, quartz dissolution and sandstone collapse, drusy quartz- and pyrite-lined fractures, chlorite overprinting, and bleaching. Regional interstitial illite and dickite are replaced by chlorite and additional illite in strata surrounding the uraniferous zone. Lithogeochemistry of drill core reveals a polymetallic ore assemblage: uranium, arsenic, nickel, boron, phosphorus, molybdenum, and cobalt. These studies confirm the geological environment of the western part of Athabasca Basin as favourable for major unconformity-related deposits as in eastern and central parts of the basin, and provide guides to further exploration.
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