Date of Award

2016

Publication Type

Doctoral Thesis

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Earth and Environmental Sciences

Keywords

Graphite zone, Oxygen fugacity, Reactive mass transport modeling, Redox process, Thermal convection, Unconformity-related uranium

Supervisor

Yang, Jianwen

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

This thesis aims at investigating the formation and controlling factors of unconformityrelated uranium (URU) deposits through fluid flow and reactive mass transport modeling. The role of a graphite zone was first addressed using two different reducing mechanisms. In the first mechanism, uraninite precipitation involves methane as a reductant. In the second mechanism, oxygen is used for formulating the redox reaction. Results show that uraninite can precipitate below the unconformity and away from the graphite zone regardless of the reducing agent. However, methane leads to a higher grade in uranium mineralization.

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