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Title: Field evaluation of active and passive direct uranium borehole logging systems

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6156852

Thirty test holes were placed in a variety of geologic environments and for wide variations in ore zone grade, thickness, and uranium/radium disequilibrium condition. The ore zones of each test hole were core drilled with >90% core recovery. Core samples were analyzed for a number of trace, minor and major elemental constituents, and for several physical properties. A standard suite of geophysical logs was obtained prior to casing the test holes. Direct uranium logs were then obtained by the PGT, Sandia, IRT, and Century Geophysical sondes. All core and logging results have been written to a computerized data base. The data base was then used to produce various comparison plots and other forms of data evaluation. Calculation of the grade-thickness product for each ore zone and sonde type shows that the logging results are widely dispersed about the values obtained from the core assays. Results for the IRT sonde are systematically lower than core results, the Century sonde severely overestimates the grade-thickness product for very low grade zones, and the PGT sonde exhibits a systematic trend toward underestimating grade-thickness for higher grade (>1000 ppM) ore zones. The Sandia sonde shows no such systematic trends and agrees well with core results at the higher grades (1000 to 2500 ppM range). Neglecting the very large discrepancies observed, for example, with Century's sonde at low grade, or with IRT's sonde when malfunction was suspected, the four direct uranium logging sondes exhibited similar dispersions about the core results.Approximately 50 percent of the time the logging sondes are within +-30% of the core results while about 75% of the time they are within +-50%. A certain amount of this dispersion is due to the unfavorable borehole conditions and to the variety of geologic environments sampled.

Research Organization:
Bendix Field Engineering Corp., Grand Junction, CO (USA); Continental Oil Co., Falls City, TX (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
AC13-76GJ01664
OSTI ID:
6156852
Report Number(s):
GJBX-11381; ON: DE81028626; TRN: 81-013683
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English