L. Fituni, I. Abramova Resource Potential of Africa and Russia's ...

As concerns the radiation problem, high radon flow rates are estimated
within the Elkon ore field in mine workings of all deposits
of the future Elkon Hydrometallurgical Works. This is caused by a
high ore emanation rate at Elkon and broad areas that will be exposed
during planned uranium ore mining (up to 5,000 tons/year of
uranium).
When mining methods for the future uranium deposits in South
Yakutia (which is a permafrost zone) are selected, it is advisable to
consider the advantages of a new advanced mining system with ice
and ice/rock stowing. The system enables to reduce the environmental
stress and obtain economic benefits through a decrease in
material and labor costs per 1 tons of mined mineral. 17
In Africa, many countries renewed their efforts in developing
uranium mining after the world prices for this commodity began to
grow. This growth came as a result of the increased demand from
developed countries and fast growing economies.
In recent years (2007–2010), Egypt Nuclear Materials Authority
of Egypt (NMA) concentrated its exploration and development activities
in four of its uranium prospects in the southern Egypt and
northern parts of the Eastern Desert and southwest Sinai Peninsula.
These activities mainly included exploratory deep trenching and
shallow drilling works supported by ground integrated geophysical
and geochemical investigations to follow-up subsurface extensions
of the tectonic structures and geologic formations hosting the uranium
mineralisation in these occurrences which displayed good uranium
resources. Intensive underground exploratory works supported
by deep drilling facilities are still urgently required to reach a reliable
evaluation of these uranium resources.
Early 2009 Egypt started a comprehensive geological, geophysical,
and geochemical exploration works in the southern part of the
Eastern Desert and Red Sea region. These activities are currently
concentrated on exploring potential uranium resources in new target
environments mainly include the Cretaceous volcanic rocks (e.g.
Natash Volcanics) and Cretaceous Nubia sandstone basins (e.g.
Kom Ombo Basin) located in the southern part of the Eastern Desert
in addition to the unconformity contacts between the younger gran-
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