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Proposed Title 1: - Queen's University

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eccia-type. The other styles of mineralization are minor, and their presence complicates<br />

both exploration and our understanding of deposit genesis in the area.<br />

3.1. Introduction<br />

The Martin Lake successor basin (Hendry, 1983; Mazimhaka and Hendry, 1985), in<br />

the Beaverlodge district, Saskatchewan, Canada, was affected by a protracted history of<br />

deformation, hydrothermal alteration and uranium mineralization during the Proterozoic<br />

(Dieng et al., 2011). Despite several decades of intense exploration and mining activities,<br />

only limited studies of the fluid characteristics of a few deposits have been reported (e.g.<br />

Robinson, 1955; Beck, 1969; Sassano et al., 1972; Hoeve, 1980, 1982; Sibbald, 1982;<br />

Rees, 1992; Kotzer and Kyser, 1995). Therefore, the key processes by which these<br />

deposits formed remain largely unknown. The U mineralization occurs in basement rocks<br />

beneath, and within, the Paleoproterozoic Martin Lake Basin (e.g. Tremblay, 1968;<br />

Sassano, 1972; Slater, 1983) that is stratigraphically older than, but spatially related to the<br />

U-rich Athabasca Basin (Kyser et al., 2000; Alexandre et al., 2009). However, whether or<br />

not these deposits are unconformity-related and how they are related to those in the<br />

Athabasca Basin is moot.<br />

In this chapter, we evaluate the character and formation of uranium deposits in the<br />

Beaverlodge area using mineral paragenesis that details the relative timing of alteration<br />

minerals. We also constrain the nature and origin of fluids in equilibrium with these<br />

minerals by using stable isotope geochemistry, rare earth element contents in uraninite,<br />

and chlorite and uraninite crystal chemistry. These results are used to identify key factors<br />

controlling U mineralization in the Martin Lake successor basin, present a conceptual<br />

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