Geochemistry of the Frenchy Incline uranium deposit, San Miguel County, Colorado

The Frenchy Incline uranium deposit is in the Salt Wash member of the Morrison formation, on the central part of the Colorado Plateau, and consists of sandstone and mudstone that have been impregnated with uranium and vanadium minerals in addition to other constituents. The compositions of the deposit and its host rocks have been determined from semiquantitative spectrographic analyses of 219 drill-core samples. Comparison of the compositions of the mineralized and unmineralized rocks shows that in the formation of the deposit the host rocks were enriched in vanadium, iron, uranium, strontium (?), lead, zinc, copper, chromium (?), nickel, cobalt, molybdenum, and silver, in decreasing order of abundance. In general, this is the same suite of elements which has been found to be enriched in other uranium deposits in the Salt Wash member of the Morrison formation on the Colorado Plateau.