Proposed Title 1: - Queen's University

Verna deposits are two northeast-striking, southeast-dipping, oblique-normal and dextral
fault systems that offer an excellent setting to understand the temporal relationship of fault
activity and uranium mineralization to regional thermotectonic events (Fig. 2.2).
The timing and tectonic setting of uranium mineralization in the Beaverlodge area has
been a contentious issue. Although the spatial relationship between uranium mineralization
and major structures has been well documented (e.g. Robinson, 1955; Tremblay, 1968;
Beck, 1969; Beecham, 1969; Morton and Sassano, 1972; Sassano, 1972; Sibbald, 1982,
Ashton et al., 2000, 2010), the timing of tectonic and fluid events in these deposits and their
relationships with fault activity and regional thermotectonic events have never been fully
elucidated.
In this chaper, U-Pb dating by laser ablation-high resolution inductively-coupled
plasma mass spectrometry (LA-HR-ICP-MS) on uraninite from uranium deposits, together
with petrographic and structural analysis along the Main Ore shear zone and the Saint Louis
fault, are used to constrain the timing of deformation and fluid events and to clarify the
relationship between fault activity and uranium mineralization. Ultimately, ages of primary
uranium mineralization and late alteration events that affected them are used to correlate
the chronology of fault activity and uranium mineralization to major orogenic events
associated with the evolution of the North American shield.
2.2. Geologic Setting
2.2.1. General geology
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