Geology Reports⌕ Search

Geology topics

P.L. Killeen

Publications and source records attributed to P.L. Killeen.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
USGS1983

Proposed program for and present status of the Geological Survey's investigation of domestic resources of radioactive raw materials

This interim report is designed to show the present status of the Geological Survey's information and the parts of a comprehensive program necessary to improve our information about the raw material resources of uranium and thorium. Rarely in geologic work has it been necessary. to determine so completely a nation's resources of useful minerals in so brief a span of time. Ordinarily, information on mineral resources Is accumulated during a long period of years. However, uranium and thorium were suddenly thrust from a position of subsidiary economic interest into one of great strategic importance. Information concerning their occurrence must, therefore, be obtained as rapidly as reliable methods of investigation will permit. Accordingly the program must be at once comprehensive and carried out over an area more extensive than is usual in the search for and appraisal of most other mineral resources.

Trace Elements Investigations↗
USGS1953

Reconnaissance for radioactive deposits in the lower Yukon-Kuskokwim Highlands region, Alaska

Investigations in 1947 in the Lower Yukon-Kuskokwim region, Alaska found that previously reported radioactivity in the vicinity of Flat is due to uraniferous zircon, an accessory mineral in monzonite. The monzonite intrudes mafic igneous and Upper Cretaceous sedimentary rocks. The maximum equivalent-uranium content of the zircon is 0.14 percent, and the average content is probably near 0. 13 percent. Chemical analysis of one sample of the most radioactive zircon indicates approximately 0.12 percent uranium and 0.03 percent thoria. The radioactive elements apparently are most commonly associated with reddish-brown inclusions within the zircon crystals. Tests of sulfide-bearing veins, black shales, and other rock types in the area around Flat showed no significant amount of radioactive material. Although there is little likelihood of finding high-grade uranium deposits in the area covered by the 1947 investigation, the fact that the predominant radioactive element in the monzonite is uranium may indicate that other intrusives of the same age in the Lower Yukon-Kuskokwim region might also contain uraniferous material. Possibilities of concentrations in attendant contact-metamorphic or vein deposits are suggested by a previously reported occurrence of zeunerite in a copper lode in this same general belt of intrusives.

Circular↗