| Title | Controls on uranium, rare earth element, and radionuclide mobility at the decommissioned Bicroft Uranium Mine, Ontario |
| Author | Parsons, M B; Friske, P W B; Laidlow, A M; Jamieson, H E |
| Source | Atlantic Geoscience Society 40th Colloquium and Annual Meeting, program with abstracts; 2014 p. 36 |
| Links | Online - En ligne
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| Year | 2014 |
| Publisher | Atlantic Geoscience Society |
| Meeting | Atlantic Geoscience Society 40th Colloquium and Annual Meeting; Wolfville; CA; February 7-9, 2014 |
| Document | book |
| Lang. | English |
| Media | digital; on-line |
| Related | This publication is related to Parsons, M B; Friske, P W B;
Laidlow, A M; Jamieson, H E; (2014). Controls on uranium, rare earth element, and radionuclide mobility at the decommissioned Bicroft Uranium Mine, Ontario, Geological Survey of Canada, Scientific Presentation no. 24 |
| File format | pdf |
| Province | Ontario |
| NTS | 31D/16 |
| Lat/Long WENS | -78.0500 -78.0333 45.0000 44.9833 |
| Subjects | economic geology; geochemistry; metallic minerals; environmental geology; Health and Safety; uranium; uranium deposits; radionuclides; tailings; tailings analyses; tailings geochemistry; radioactivity;
radioactive waste; surface waters; lake sediment geochemistry; lake water geochemistry; lake sediments; lake water; iron; hydroxides; thorium; Bicroft Mine; rare earth elements; rare earth element analyses; human health |
| Illustrations | location maps; photographs; plots; graphs |
| Program | Tools for environmental impacts and adaptation for metal mining, Environmental Geoscience |
| Abstract | Uranium ores have been mined in Canada since the 1930s, resulting in the production of approximately 214 million tonnes of mill tailings. These tailings may pose a risk to ecosystems and human health
because of their long- lived radioactivity, and their potential to release radionuclides, metal(loid)s, radon gas, and milling reagents to the environment. The main objective of this study was to characterize the processes controlling the release,
transport, and fate of U, radionuclides ( 226 Ra, 210 Pb), and rare earth elements (REEs) downstream from two decommissioned tailings impoundments at the Bicroft Uranium Mine near Bancroft, Ontario. The Bicroft Mine operated from 1957 to 1963, and
milled approximately 2,470,000 tonnes of U ore from granitic pegmatite dykes. This type of U deposit is relatively widespread throughout the Grenville Province in Ontario, Québec, and Labrador, and has recently been the focus of exploration as a
source of REEs and other strategic metals. Samples of tailings, sediments, surface waters, and colloids were collected from the Bicroft Mine between 2010 and 2012. Regional-scale sampling of sediments and waters, as well as reanalysis of archived
stream and lake sediments, were undertaken to determine natural background variation. The concentration of U in the Bicroft tailings samples varies from 3.1 to 210 mg/kg (median 19 mg/kg). Much higher concentrations were found in stream and pond
sediments below the tailings impoundments (54 to 730 mg/kg; median 150 mg/kg). Uranium concentrations in regional lake sediments range from 0.4 to 140 mg/kg (median 4.2 mg/kg), and regional stream sediments range from 1.2 to 110 mg/kg (median 4.6
mg/kg). Seasonal sampling of tailings effluent shows that these waters are circumneutral (pH 6.6-8.3) and that the downstream concentrations of U and 226 Ra are generally highest in the fall. Comparison of filtered and unfiltered effluents, combined
with synchrotron microanalyses of colloids, shows that the downstream mobility of REEs is limited by sorption to Fe- and Mn-oxyhydroxides. In contrast, U occurs mainly in the dissolved phase and its mobility does not appear to be limited by sorption
to colloids or precipitation of secondary U phases. Geochemical modeling of the effluent demonstrates that the aqueous speciation of U is dominated by calcium-uranyl-carbonato complexes [e.g. Ca 2 UO 2 (CO 3 ) 3 ], which are known to diminish the
sorption of U to mineral surfaces and suppress the reduction of U(VI) to less soluble U(IV). The results of this study provide improved understanding of the long-term stability of U tailings, and have implications for the design of environmental
monitoring plans. |
| GEOSCAN ID | 294862 |
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