A hydrothermal karst-hosted U-P deposit related to Pangea break-up: Itataia deposit, Borborema Province, Northeastern Brazil - a review

Abstract

The Itataia U-P deposit holds the second largest uranium reserve in Brazil. All of the uranium is contained within the microcrystalline structure of fluorapatite, which is the ore mineral of the collophanite bodies. The main lithology that hosts the mineralization is marble, and the collophanite occurs as massive bodies, stockwork vein, breccia, filling vugs in episyenites, and disseminated in host rocks. This review shows that five important episodes in the Northern Borborema Province, leading to the consolidation of the Itataia U-P deposit: i) deposition of a phosphate-rich Neoproterozoic supracrustal quartz-pelite--carbonate sequence, represented by the Itataia Group; ii) building of the Neoproterozoic Tamboril-Santa Quitéria continental magmatic arc, responsible for the partial melting of the phosphate-rich supracrustal sequence; iii) Na-metasomatism related to Neoproterozoic/Cambrian-Ordovician post-collisional to anorogenic granitoids, which generated uranium-rich albitite, as well as barren episyenite bodies; iv) Cretaceous hydrothermal karstic event related to the generalized fracturing of the continental crust caused by the Pangea break-up and making possible the deposition of collophanites in the karstic features and vugs in episyenites; v) reworking of the collophanites with the deposition of breccia in paleokarstic features in the marble.

Three-dimensional geological modeling of the Itataia Phosphate-Uranium Deposit (Ceará, Brazil)

“…The importance of supergene processes in collophane genesis in Itataia is cited in several studies on the deposit (e.g., Angeiras et al 1981, Favali and Leal 1982, Mendonça et al 1985, Angeiras 1988, Castro et al 2005a, Cavalcanti et al 2013, 2018, Veríssimo et al 2016. The depth of around 130m below the topographic surface suggested by researchers can be clearly observed in the 3D models in Figure 16, representing the lower limit of supergene enrichment and the generation of enriched ores in Itataia.…”

“…More recent studies emphasize the importance of magma hot springs related to the opening of the South Atlantic in Three-dimensional geological modeling of the Itataia Phosphate-Uranium Deposit (Ceará, Brazil) the formation of the Itatiaia deposit (Cavalcanti and Bessa 2011, Cavalcanti et al 2013, Santos et al 2014, Cavalcanti et al 2018. Petrographic studies and detailed isotopic analysis (oxygen, carbon, and strontium) performed by Veríssimo et al (2016) confirm the epigenetic and post-deformational character of mineralized fluids and suggest a multiphase mineralization process for the Itataia deposit.…”

Paragenesis, mineral chemical and microtextural studies of uranium bearing minerals in the brecciated albitites U-ores from the Kitongo shear zone, Poli region, northern Cameroon

“…The U-Mo is locally hosted by a highly fractured granite along the NE-SW regional faults (Mosoh Bambi et al 2013;Embui et al 2019). As a whole, the geological locations of these individual U-deposits and their structural attributes suggest that they may have had the same structural controlling fault systems: the Pan-African-Brasiliano shear zones that may have favoured the implacement of the aforementioned U-deposits as well as U-deposits in the Borborema Province, NE Brazil including the Espinharas and Itataia deposits (Verissimo et al 2016;Cavalcanti et al 2018;Fig. 9).…”