The uranium cycle

In identifying uranium provinces, and, more importantly, mineralized zones within these provinces, it is of paramount importance to attempt to trace the geochemical behaviour of an element through all stages of Earth's evolution. Aspects that need to be addressed in this regard include solar abundance levels and fractionation processes during accretion, changing patterns of crustal evolution, effects of an evolving atmosphere, and the weathering cycle. Abundance patterns and partition coefficients of some of the siderophile elements in mantle rocks lend support to a multistage accretionary process. Lack of a terrestrial record in the first 500 Ma necessitates that lunar models be invoked, which suggests that early fractionation of a mafic/ultramafic magma resulted in an anorthositic crust. Fractionation of the mantle and transfer of materials to the upper levels must be central to any model invoked for development of the crust. Given high heat flow conditions in the early Archaean it would seem inescapable that the process of sea floor spreading and plate tectonics was an ongoing process. If the plate tectonic model is taken back to 3500 Ma, and assuming current speading rates, then about half of the mantle has passed through the irreversible differentiation cycle. Arguments in support of recycled material must be balanced against mantle metasomatism effects. With the associated advent of partial melting of the mantle material a partitioning of minor and trace elements into the melt fraction would take place. The early primitive mafic and ultramafic komatiites exemplify this feature by concentrating U and Th by a factor of 5 compared to chondritic abundances. It is of tantamount importance to understand the generation of the magmas in order to predict which are the 'fertile' bodies in terms of radioelement concentrations. In that the granitoid magmas image their source compositions, the association of high radioelements will primarily be source-dependent. Uranium concentration can be associated with I-, S- or A-type granitoids. 65 refs