International Uranium Resources Evaluation Project (IUREP) national favourability studies: Burma

There is no information on production of nuclear raw materials in Burma, although there are some uranium occurrences. Hunting Geophysics Ltd has done some aerial prospecting work in the area of Victoria Point in Southern Burma. All the data collected has been plotted on several maps and issued to various Burmese organizations, with a complete report. The follow-up ground exploration was done by a prospecting party headed by Dr Gjelsvik. The Hunting Geophysics' and Dr Gjelsvik reports are not available in the IAEA. The Raw Materials Division in the Union of Burma Atomic Energy Center commenced operations in 1955. The area of Mogok was selected by U Soo Win, the head of the Division, as most favourable for uranium exploration. The region is mountainous, with heavy forest cover. A ground gamma-ray survey was carried out in Mogok Mineral Belt by two geologists accompanied by two assistants, at a spacing of one km. This work showed monazite in all streams over an area of about 150 sq km and has given a detailed studies led to the discovery of some uraninite and pitchblende in the overburden of an old lode. Based, on these first discoveries the Government of Burma requested assistance from the IAEA and an expert was sent there for a period of one year. His field work was mainly limited in the Mogok Mineral Belt, however some reconnaissance field trips were made in other parts of the country. Dr D L Searle concluded that the Mogok area represents a zone of high temperature mineralization but a lower temperature form of uranium mineralization may have developed along the outer edges of the principal high grade zone. He recommended that the area between the Mogok scarp and the Shweli River be systematically traversed. Uranium bearing minerals in Burma are the following: monazite bearing beach sands near Amherst, Tenasserim; monazite placers from near Momeik, Northern Shan States; uraninte crystals from the gem-gravels around Mogok; a radioactive anomaly in syenite at Kyatpyin, near Mogok; radioactive iron ore at Pangpet, near Taunggyi, Southern Shan States and radioactive fossil wood from Central Burma. From structural point of view the most favourable geological environments for new discoveries are those in the Central, Basin, or as it is named Irrawaddy Basin and Shan Plateau massif. Sedimentary rocks of enormous thickness were formed, in the intramountain Irrawaddy Basin during the Tertiary Period. There is no information about the facies of the sediments but it could be supposed that most of these strata were deposited either in fans or rivers and have features of fluvial facies which is most favourable for uranium concentration leached from surrounding granites and alaskite in Shan plateau massif. The radioactive fossil wood from Central Burma may be an indication for uranium favourability of this basin. The known uranium occurrences in Mogok Belt could be considered, as indicative of some uranium potential of the region mainly of the alaskite and the areas around it. There is also potential in the Tawang Peng area of the Northern Shan States, where the famous multi-metal Bawdwin mine is located in a series of rhyolitic tuffs, lava flows and breccias, interspersed with coarse feldspathic grits of early Paleozoic age. The speculative potential could be about 10,000 tonnes uranium