Applications for Mineral Exploration

Applications of AFTA / ZFTA to Mineral Exploration

  • Timing and amount of unroofing - applied to diamond pipes
  • Dating of Igneous Rocks - the technique can be applied in rocks of all ages from Pre Cambrian to Tertiary
  • Dating the timing of thrusting and folding
  • Thermal effects of igneous activity
  • Provides information on sediment provenance

Fission Track Uranium Mapping

The fission track technique produces a map of the uranium distribution within a sample on a microscopic scale. Thermal neutron irradiation induces fission of 235U within the sample, and fission fragments emitted from the sample are recorded as etched tracks in a mica detector attached to the sample. The number of fission events is proportional to the uranium content, so uranium concentration at any point in the sample may be measured by counting the number of fission tracks in that region using an optical microscope.

Diamond Exploration

Uranium mapping in diamond exploration

UMap™ uranium mapping of zircons for provenance studies of diamond source terrains.

Since zircons from mantle-derived rocks have low uranium, and zircon is a very stable mineral that persists in drainage systems, identification of low uranium zircons can be a useful tool in diamond exploration. Geotrack have developed a simple, low cost method of determining uranium in individual zircon crystals that allows rapid screening of large numbers of grains to identify those from potential diamondiferous sources.

Heavy Mineral Exploration

Heavy mineral sands exploration services

UMap™, CHIME, Mineral Identification, EMP chemical analysis, SEM and Mineral Separation.

UMap is ideally suited to characterise the source of high radioactivity from zircon concentrates, that affects their marketable value, by providing spatial information on the distribution

Mineral Processing Applications

The UMap technique has been used successfully in the pilot plant stage of Uranium mining to determine exact location of finely disseminated Uranium oxides.

Technical paper on Uranium distribution UMap technology

 

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