Formation of the high-grade Triple R uranium deposit revealed by Fe and S isotopes in pyrite
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The Patterson Lake corridor, located on the southwestern margin of the Athabasca Basin, contains several basement-hosted uranium deposits that formed via protracted, structurally controlled fluid–rock interactions. Using multiple generations of pyrite grains (pre-, syn- and post-mineralization) from the Triple R deposit, in situ iron isotopic analyses revealed large intra-sample and -grain variations ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> 56 Fe values ranging from −2.21 to +1.67‰) whereas sulfur isotopes yielded minor variations ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> 34 S values ranging from −4.44 to +5.3‰) relative to natural isotopic variations for both elements. The wide range in <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> 56 Fe values supports textural and chemical evidence that fluctuating oxidation states and chemistry in the fault zone fluids caused multiple generations of pyrite oxidation and precipitation. Sulfur isotope data from shallower mineralized zones show a slight enrichment in heavier isotopes, consistent with limited Rayleigh fractionation. However, when coupled with iron isotope data, the overall dataset supports a sulfur-rich, open system wherein heat from intrusions at depth and fault movements drove sulfur-bearing fluids upwards, causing precipitation of pre-mineralization pyrite and graphite. During fault reactivation, fluid pressure fluctuations between hydrostatic and sub-hydrostatic regimes drew oxidizing, uranium-bearing, basinal brines down into the basement to react with sulfides in the host rocks and deeply sourced, H 2 S-bearing reducing fluids. These redox reactions and fluid mixing resulted in precipitation of uraninite and syn-mineralization pyrite. These results further support the importance of structural control, repeated faulting and thermal anomalies in the basement for mineralization, necessitating re-examination of the current exploration model for unconformity-related uranium deposits. Supplementary material: Plot of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> 57 Fe versus <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> 56 Fe values of all samples is available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.6026621 Thematic collection: This article is part of the Uranium Fluid Pathways collection available at: https://www.lyellcollection.org/cc/uranium-fluid-pathways
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".