APPLICATION OF GROUND GEOPHYSICAL-DATA TO URANIUM MINERALIZATION IN THE EL-MISSIKAT AREA, CENTRAL EASTERN-DESERT, EGYPT

The El-Missikat prospect Lies in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, 85 km fr om Qena along the river Nile. The area of the prospect is covered by p ink granites of the Gabal (G.) El-Missikat pluton from the south and q uartz diorite from the north, as well as wad alluvium at Wadi El-Missi kat, which passes through the study area from south to north. The impo rtance of the study area comes from previous studies, airborne geophys ics, surface and mining geology and ground spectrometric and magnetic studies, which prove that the area has radioactive mineralization zone s at the northeastern periphery of G. El-Missikat. These mineralized z ones lie along northeast-southwest jasperiod veins and shear zones whi ch occur inside the granitic rocks. The previous studies concluded tha t the radioactive mineralization was mostly associated with sulphides, especially at the reduction zones. These sulphides give a good respon se to electrical or electromagnetic techniques. Accordingly, the prese nt study uses self potential, electrically induced polarization and ho rizontal loop electromagnetic surveys to explore the extension of the mineralization zones at the subsurface. The self potential (SP) techni que shows that there are numerous (31) mineralized zones. Most of thes e zones are distributed in the southern part of the area along the con tact between the quartz diorite, the granite and the shear zones insid e the El-Missikat granitic pluton. In addition, the induced polarizati on (IP) method is applied on two selected profiles (450E and 500E) to delineate the subsurface contact between granite and quartz diorite in Wad El-Missikat and to calculate the shape and depth of the mineraliz ation zones in the subsurface along these profiles. The horizontal loo p electromagnetic survey, which was applied on three selected profiles , delineated some weak mineralization occurrences corresponding to the shear zones. The integration of the results obtained using these thre e techniques, in addition to the different ground geophysical methods prviously used, make it possible to determine the most appropriate zon es for developement of exploration at the area of investigation.