Uranium and associated elements detection in carbonaceous shale and dolostone, Southwestern Sinai, Egypt

The uranium occurs in the Lower Carbonaceous shale and dolostone of the Um Bogma Formation, Southwestern Sinai are characterized by visible uranium minerals that observed by the naked eye in the field and associated concentric zonation of Cu, Co, Ni, Pb and Zn elements. The mineralogical studies using X-Ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope attached with EDAX unit identified the presence of the main uranium minerals as triuranium octoxide and uranophane, with associated minerals as Cu-minerals, hematite, Mn-minerals and pyrite. A detailed field and mineralogical study support the hypothesis that the metal source of these mineralization precipitated from hydrothermal fluids related to the magmatic intrusion of basaltic sheets and sills covering the area. The hydrothermal fluids have dominantly concentrated as fissure filling and have been redistributed by meteoric waters postdating the basaltic intrusion stage. The deposits of U, Cu, Co, Ni, Pb and Zn traces as veins and fissure filling are approximately 10 to 20 times higher than in redistributed anomalous other areas. The metals U, Cu, Co, Ni, Pb and Zn occurrences have comparable concentrations for both types of anomalies, which suggests that the fluid sources are compositionally similar and could have derived from the deep-seated magmatic-hydrothermal environment.