Arbitrary estimation of uranium ore reserves in Qattar–V, North Eastern Desert, Egypt using geographic information system

Abstract

The qattar - V (G-V) uranium occurrence occurs at the contact areas between Gabal Qattar (G - Qattar) granite and Hammamat sedimentary rocks. The aim of this study is to estimate uranium ore reserves using a geographic information system by analyzing all the exploration data sets at G-V. Several geological investigations, including field and mineralogical observations, geochemical and radiometric surveys, have been performed for this uranium occurrence. Integrate these investigations with new radiometric and geochemical measurements to cover all the investigated areas has been done in this study. Using GIS it is possible to visualize the results and to extract the spatial features indicative of uranium mineralization's over G-V uranium occurrence. Our methodology involves the generation of prediction maps for the favorable host rock, structure control of uranium mineralization, alterations in intimate association with uranium, radiometrical and geochemical measurements. Combining all these spatial features leads to the differentiation between the areas with economical and for grades of uranium and the generation of a potential uranium map. From this map, the estimation of uranium ore quantity and quality at G-V uranium occurrences can be calculated using cuboids of constant widths, different lengths, and heights. This method gave arbitrary but reasonable estimates of uranium in selected blocks.