Characteristics of Uranium Mineralization in Red Clastic Formations in the Southwestern Margin of the Ordos Basin

In the southwestern margin of the Ordos Basin,uranium mineralization is primarily hosted by predominantly oxidative red clastic formations in the Lower Cretaceous.The main target layers for uranium exploration are the Madongshan and Liwaxia formations of the Liupanshan Group,followed by the Jingchuan Formation of the Zhidan Group.The host rocks(medium-fine feldspar quartz sandstone),which are bleached to a light grayish white color,contain a minor organic matter component and pyrite.Uranium mineralization changes from surficial infiltration or phreatic oxidation in the upper part to interlayer oxidation in the lower part.Uranium ore bodies are mostly lenticular or tabular in shape,locally shaped like crescent rolls.Individual ore bodies are typically small and shallow.Uranium predominantly manifests as pitchblende and coffinite.Coffinite is usually short and columnar or granular in habit,whereas pitchblende occurs as an irregular colloidal covering on the surface or in fissures of ferric oxide,silicate,clay or carbonate.Secondary uranium minerals are torbernite,uranophane,and uranopilite.Minerals associated with uranium are mainly pyrite,chalcopyrite and,to a minor extent,arsenopyrite and fluorite.The associated elements are Mo,V,Se,Co,Ni,and Mn,the host sandstone being high in Cu and Ba.Overall,the red clastic formations in the southwestern margin of the Ordos Basin are characterized by’five multiples but one low’which means multiple target layers,multiple stages of mineralization,multiple ore body shapes,multiple kinds of uranium minerals,multiple associated elements,but low organic matter.This implies an overall complex uranium metallogenic environment and mineralization process.It is recommended that future uranium exploration should take into consideration regional metallogenic conditions and mineralization features,with target layers in the wide-smooth synclinal slope being focused on.Most uranium deposits are small to medium in size,and the main type of uranium mineralization can vary by target layer.

Numerical study on the fracturing mechanism of shock wave interactions between two adjacent blast holes in deep rock blasting

With the application of electronic detonators, millisecond blasting is regarded as a signifi cant promising approach to improve the rock fragmentation in deep rock blasting. Thus, it is necessary to investigate the fracturing mechanisms of short-delay blasting. In this work, a rectangle model with two circle boreholes is modeled as a particles assembly based on the discrete element method to simulate the shock wave interactions induced by millisecond blasting. The rectangle model has a size of 12 × 6 m (L × W) and two blast holes have the same diameter of 12 cm. The shock waves are simplifi ed as time-varying forces applied at the particles of walls of the two boreholes. Among a series of numerical tests in this study, the spacing between two adjacent boreholes and delay time of millisecond blasting are considered as two primary variables, and the decoupling charge with a coeffi cient of 1.5 is taken into account in each case. The results show that stress superposition is not a key factor for improving rock fragmentation (tensile stress interactions rather than compressive stress superposition could aff ect the generation of cracks), whereas collision actions from isolated particles or particles with weakened constraints play a crucial role in creating the fracture network. The delay time has an infl uence on causing cracks in rock blasting, however, whether it works heavily depends on the distance between the two holes.

Wellbore leakage risk management in CO_(2) geological utilization and storage: A review

CO_(2) geological utilization and storage(CGUS)is an important technology to achieve a deep cut of global CO_(2) emissions.CO_(2) leakage from the subsurface may impair the performance of CGUS projects,and the CO_(2) leakage through wellbores is the most common leakage pathway.This paper proposes a workflow for wellbore CO_(2) leakage risk management,and the workflow consists of the following steps:i)leakage risk identification;ii)leakage risk evaluation;iii)leakage risk monitoring;iv)leakage handling.Representative approaches in each step of the workflow are systematically reviewed.Key challenges of wellbore CO_(2) leakage risk management include:lack of effective detection and evaluation approaches to tackle the CO_(2) leakage risk induced by cement failure;lack of low-cost acid resistance alloys and CO_(2)-resistant cement;lack of automated monitoring systems that could enable automated shutdowns of the wellbore whenever certain warning criteria are met.

A calibration-free model for laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy using non-gated detectors

Calibration-free(CF)laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy(LIBS)is normally only applicable for gated detectors due to its dependence on the assumption of a steady-state plasma.However,most currently available LIBS systems are equipped with non-gated detectors such as chargecoupled device(CCD),which degrades the accuracy of CF method.In this paper,the reason for the less satisfactory quantification performance of CF for LIBS with non-gated detectors was clarified and a time-integration calibration-free(TICF)model was proposed for applications with non-gated detectors.It was based on an assumed temporal profile of plasma properties,including temperature and electron density,obtained from another pre-experiment.The line intensity at different time during the signal collection time window was estimated with self-absorption correction according to the temporal profile of the plasma properties.The proposed model was validated on titanium alloys and compared with traditional CF.The accuracy of elemental concentration measurement was improved significantly:the average relative error of aluminum and vanadium decreased from 6.07%and 22.34%to 2.01%and 1.92%,respectively.The quantification results showed that TICF method was able to extend the applicability of CF to LIBS with non-gated detectors.