Looking deeper ? changing tactics for uranium exploration

Abstract

Uranium exploration is the US, Canada and Ausralia is undergoing a fundamental change. Shallow deposits with surface expression detectable by airborne or ground radio-metrics are becoming more difficult to find. Yet it is in these areas where exploration has been most successful in the past few years because of subcropping deposits which still retain enormous potential for future discoveries. Geophysical methods such as aeromagnetio EM and magnetometer surveys, coupled with geological interpretations of known deposits, have proved very successful, for example in the Athabasca Basin in Northern Saaskatchewan, where many potential mineralized zones have been located at depths of 150 m or more. However drilling all the possible anomalies has proved an expensive strategy with a low success rate, although at least one deposit (West Bear) has been located in this way (Armstrong and Brewster, 1979).