Four major uranium districts in Tertiary rocks of central Wyoming are in fluvial sandstones derived from the granitic rock of the ancestral Sweet-water arch and deposited in adjacent intermontane basins. Sediment transported southward into the Great Divide basin was deposited on an apron of alluvial fans. Sedimentation in the Gas Hills area of the Wind River basin was on an alluvial fan in which ridges of older rock disrupted the normal development of the fan. Sediment in west Shirley basin was deposited on an alluvial fan, but in east Shirley basin and in the Powder River basin sedimentation was channel and flood-basin deposits of a meandering stream. The sandstones are subarkosic to arkosic, medium grained to conglomeratic, angular and poorly sorted. Sandstone intertong e with green or carbonaceous shales. Sedimentation was in a warm, humid climate with abundant vegetation. Decay of the organic material created reducing conditions in the sediment which caused partial carbonization of some of the plant debris, formation of pyrite, and precipitation of uranium minerals.

Following burial, uplift-induced changes in the hydrodynamic system caused an invasion of the reduced sediment by oxygenated water far below the static water table. This caused destruction of carbonaceous material, oxidation of pyrite, and accumulation of uranium and other susceptible metals in a wave or front just ahead of the invading oxidizing environment. The invading oxidation was a dynamic, expanding process which moved through the permeable zones of the fluvial sequence until its dimensions measured miles in areal extent and hundreds of feet in thickness. This geochemical cell had a sharply defined boundary produced by biochemically controlled changes in physical and chemical conditions. Oxygenated waters, aided by Thiobacillus ferrooxidans, oxidized pyrite to produce sulfuric cid and ferric sulfate, a strong oxidizer, which leached uranium and other susceptible elements. In the reducing part of the cell, anaerobic bacteria, including the sulfate reducer Desulfovibrio, consumed the organic material in the sediments and the sulfates from the oxidizing area, to produce hydrogen, hydrogen sulfide, and a mildly alkaline, strongly reducing environment which precipitated pyrite, uranium, and other metals on the front. Migration of the cell was controlled by the permeability of the sandstone and by availability of carbon and pyrite. The cell advanced faster in the more permeable zones and was retarded in zones of reduced permeability and areas of greater pyrite and carbon content. The position of the mineral front was a function of the initial sedimentary pattern. Se imentation, alteration, and mineralization in the Gas Hills and Shirley basin districts illustrate these conditions and processes.