GEOLOGY, MINERALOGY AND RADIOELEMENTS POTENTIALIYY OF MICROGRANITE DIKES TO THE SOUTH OF WADI ABU HADIEDA AREA, NORTHERN EASTERN DESERT, EGYPT

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Nuclear Materials Authority, Cairo, Egypt,

Abstract

The granite dike swarms intruding the older granitiod and occasionally the younger gabbros were emplaced through
a shear zone extending in NE-SW direction. These dikes are composed mainly from alkali feldspar granites. They are fine
grained, hard and compact vary in color from pink, red, reddish brown and occasionally bloody red. It is affected by varying
degrees of alterations and subjected to deformation processes. Mineral segregations and pegmatite pockets are encountered
along deformed and altered zones. Alkali feldspars mainly perthites and microcline, quartz, little sodic plagioclase
and biotite represent the main rock forming minerals. These dikes possess high contents of radioelements especially
thorium. The eTh contents range from 63.9 ppm to 2523 ppm with an average 465.8 ppm where the eU content range from
25ppm to 497.9 ppm with 106.3 ppm average. The mineral segregations give the highest level of eU and eTh contents reach up
to 7331 ppm and 1386 ppm respectively. Secondary uranium minerals (uranophane and curite), thorium minerals (thorite) and
U- and Th-bearing minerals (Zircon, allanite, columbite, samarskite, xenotime, monazite, kasolite and titanite) are identified.
Other non radioactive minerals such as magnetite, goetite, hematite, cronstedtite, pyrite, fluorite, garnet are also identified.
Also, chemical analyses (XRF) revealed presence of high concentration of U, Zr, Y, Nb, Ba, Zn, Rb and Sr in addition to presence
of V, Pb, Ni and Cr. Au and Pt are also present

Keywords

Main Subjects