Geology of the upper part of the Fort Union Group (Paleocene), Williston Basin, with reference to uranium

Tabular sandstone beds in the Sentinel Butte Formation are thicker (as much as 30 m thick), more laterally extensive (more than 2 km wide in many places), and more abundant than in the Tongue River Formation. This indicates that high-sinuosity streams were more abundant where the Sentinel Butte Formation was deposited, and the streams were deeper and occupied wider meander belts, as would be found on the landward part of the delta plain. Siltstone, claystone, lignite, and a small amount of limestone were deposited on natural levees, crevasse splays, and in flood basins. The vertical arrangement of the two formations indicates a progradation of a large deltaic complex into the sea in which the Cannonball Formation was deposited. Sandstone in the Tongue River Formation classifies mostly as carbonate litharenite, and the fine fraction of the formation consists mostly of mica-group minerals, some kaolinite-group minerals, and a little montmorillonite. Sandstone in the Sentinel Butte Formation classifies mostly as volcanic litharenite, and the fine fraction consists mostly of montmorillonite, some kaolinite-group minerals, and a little of the mica-group minerals. The highest-grade uranium deposits in North Dakota are in the Sentinel Butte Formation in the area of the Little Missouri River escarpment in eastern Billings and northwestern Stark Counties. Little uranium has been found in the Tongue River Formation. Uranium may be more abundant in the Sentinel Butte Formation because of the abundance of glassy volcanic matter, which has now been largely altered to montmorillonite, and the abundance of fragments of volcanic rock. Weathering of the upper part of the Sentinel Butte Formation during formation of the Eocene paleosol in the northern Great Plains may have mobilized uranium that was deposited in the formation below the paleosol before deposition of the overlying Oligocene and younger sediment