Distribution of Radiation-Induced Defects in Quartz at the ACKIO Uranium Prospect, Athabasca Basin, Saskatchewan: Tracing Uranium-Bearing Fluids
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This thesis presents the results of an electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopic study of quartz from the Baselode Energy Corp.’s ACKIO uranium prospect in the Athabasca Basin, northern Saskatchewan. The study included samples taken from both the Athabasca Supergroup sandstones and basement rocks from 16 diamond drillholes. Detailed EPR analyses revealed that quartz from both sandstones and basement rocks host a suite of silicon-vacancy hole centers, formed by the bombardment of alpha particles emitted from the radioactive decay of uranium, thorium, and their unstable daughter isotopes. The differences in EPR signal intensities of these hole centers indicate that quartz grains received different accumulative doses of alpha-particle irradiation in different locations within the ACKIO prospect. A three-dimensional distribution model of the EPR signal intensities of these radiation-induced defects in quartz has been constructed. This model shows that quartz in a mineralized sample has the highest EPR signal intensity due to the presence of disseminated uraninite. For quartz sampled away from uranium mineralization, the elevated EPR intensities of the silicon-vacancy hole centers most likely indicate a temporary source of radiation, such as ancient uranium-bearing fluids. Along the sandstone-basement contact at the ACKIO project, the EPR signal intensities vary greatly and differ by approximately two orders of magnitude. Anomalously high EPR intensities recorded in fault gouges and brecciated areas suggest that these fractures served as the conduits for the migration of ancient uranium-bearing fluids and that there was limited migration of uranium-bearing fluids along the sandstone-basement contact at the ACKIO prospect. Moreover, the defined conduits for the migration of uranium-bearing fluids potentially point to new targets toward the south of the ACKIO area for further exploration. This thesis demonstrates the power of the systematic study of radiation-induced defects in quartz to reveal ancient pathways of uranium-bearing fluid vectors to explore potential mineralization targets.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 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) | 0.001 | 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 source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), 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".