**1. Introduction**

Continued interest in nuclear power and uranium industry revival is leading to the inevitable growing uranium demand. New sources of primary uranium will be derived from exploration and exploitation of lower grade ore bodies and also secondary resources as potential raw materials. In Poland, there are only low-grade uranium ores. The knowledge about a composition of a bedrock, uranium speciation and its composition with rock constituents is important for the design of the effective technology of extraction of uranium from low-grade

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ores. The significant resources of uranium are also in unconventional raw materials, e.g. phosphates, nonferrous metal ores, carbonates, monazite sands, black shales, hard coal and brown coal, as well as sea water, from which it can be obtained as a minor by-product. In Polish ores, uranium usually is accompanied by other valuable metals, e.g. V, Mo and lanthanides that can be obtained simultaneously in the technological process to improve the economics of elaborated technology.

Grzmiąca deposit related to Upper Carboniferous Sandstones, Okrzeszyn deposit related to uranium-rich Upper Carboniferous hard coal seams and Wambierzyce related to Lower

Uranium in Poland: Resources and Recovery from Low-Grade Ores

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In 1956, Polish Geological Institute (PGI) has initiated a new phase of prospecting of uranium. Additionally, parallel studies, based on all available geological and geophysical borehole data from the whole area of Poland, were conducted. The studies have led to the description of uranium mineralization in the Oligocene Menillite Shales of the Carpathians, the Carboniferous of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin and Zechstein copper-bearing shale [3]. Nevertheless, these uranium occurrences have no economic importance due to very low content of uranium, very small resources and close relationship with clay minerals and

During prospection conducted by PGI, uranium mineralization in the Ordovician dictyonema Shales (Podlasie Depression) and the more perspective Lower and Middle Triassic sediments

Uranium mineralization of Ordovician dictyonema Shales was found in rock layers of thickness from several centimeters up to 4 m (average thickness is about 2.7 m). In vertical profile black shale series was found passing upward brown shales, replaced above by the light beige shales and phosphates. Uranium occurs mainly in black shales. Apart from uranium, higher concentration of other trace metals was observed. For black shales, concentration (geometric mean) of chosen metals was: U 38 [mg/kg]; Th 16 [mg/kg], Cu 236 [mg/kg], La 43 [mg/kg] and V 1508 [mg/kg]. For brown shales, concentration geometric mean was three times lower for most metals, and it was U 38 [mg/kg], Th 18 [mg/kg], Cu 169 [mg/kg], La 45 [mg/kg] and V 678 [mg/kg]. In the black dictyonema shales, uranium showed the strongest correlation with molybdenum (0.83), lead (0.57) antimony (0.52), cadmium (0.50), silver (0.36), lithium (0.28) and beryllium, while in brown dictyonema shales with vanadium (0.69), selenium (0.87), molybdenum (0.78),

The highest uranium-rich Triassic rocks have been found in the middle part of Peribaltic Syneclise, in the rocks of Upper Bunter. The richest uranium mineralization is related to finegrained, grey and green-grey sandstones, which occurs on the Vistula Spit area. It was found that uranium concentration in the sandstones is very variable and ranges from 4.2 mg/kg even up to 1.5%wt. Higher concentration of some trace metals were also found in these rocks

Uranium minerals Organometallic compounds Coffinite, pitchblende, (inclusion in

**Ordovician dictyonema Shales Triassic Peribaltic sandstones**

Sandstones

pyrite, galena and clausthalite)

in the Peribaltic Syneclise (Vistula Spit area) were discovered and explored (**Table 2**).

antimony (0.89), copper (0.34), cobalt (0.66), nickel (0.75) and REE (0.41) [7].

contents (black shales)

**Table 2.** Ordovician dictyonema Shales and Triassic Peribaltic sandstones characteristics [5, 6].

Speculative resources [Mg] 88,850 20,000 Depth of U retention [m] 400–1200 750–1170

Deposit type Rock types with elevated uranium

Permian Walchia Shales.

organic matter.
