Training and education in uranium geology and exploration

Full text: Probably even more than for all the other resources, evolution of the scientific research for uranium metallogenesis closely follows the evolution of exploration budgets which are themselves the direct consequence of the metal price on the market. After a strong increase of exploration during the seventies, as a consequence of the 1973 oil crisis, studies and training related to uranium metallogenesis were almost stopped in most countries from the end of the eighties until the beginning of the years 2000. But a very important event for the development of the knowledge about uranium metallogenesis, happened in 1990, with the opening of the Soviet block countries. The huge research effort developed by thousands of researchers and exploration geologists since 1945 became accessible to western countries, and several hundreds of deposits have been added to the IAEA data base UDEPO. It appeared that USSR had mined almost half of the uranium produced in the world at that time, partly from deposits which were not known to have large resources in the western countries. Within the next years the number of publications on U deposits will become exponential in relation with the explosion of exploration budgets, research in the universities, project development in large companies and over 400 junior companies created in the world during these last years, following the strong increase of the uranium prices on the spot market. As a result of the weak exploration and research efforts, skilled professionals in the field of uranium geology and exploration have tremendously decreased from the late eighties to the early twenties. These last years the mining industry has faced a severe lack of experienced geologists. Retired uranium geologists have massively returned to work in the junior companies and as consultants. Vigorous training programs are being developed worldwide, but the needs are still tremendous. Presently, the best training is probably the one made for radioprotection because of the strong existing regulations. A considerable effort has to be made for developing the education in the field of the physical and geochemical properties of uranium, which are very specific to this element, and for the understanding of the various geologic models of U-deposits, those occurring at nearly all steps of the geologic cycle. Such knowledge is required to develop efficient exploration programs and to prevent spending large investments for hopeless targets as illustrated by many case studies. (author)