Sourcing extraterrestrial Nuclear fuel

>Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:52:38 -0800 (PST)
>
>To my knowlege, all of the Uranium deposits on earth
>are the result of water in one way or another.
>Uranium and a host of other metals are concentrated by
>magma bodies as they don't fit into common crystal
>structures. The magmatic fluids (CO2 & H2O) carry
>away these elements to form veins of pitchblend or
>precipitate in carbon deposits by replacement.
>Colorado is an excellent place to see both.
>
>The moon did have volcanic activity yet it is unclear
>to me if this caused the differentiation and
>fractionation necessary to form concentrated deposits.
> Flood basalts are not intrusive plutons so there
>would be no overburden to have hot springs. Simple
>spattered lava will not get you much.
>
>You will pick up traces of Thorium and Uranium from
>satellite scans. The actual mining and recovery may
>be down to parts per million which makes electrolysis
>of water look really cheap and easy :) The asteroids
>do not look any better for differentiation. Mars
>didn't have subduction to get pluton arcs and
>progressive concentration.
>
>Sorry Earth may be it.
>
>Cheers, Thor
>(ex Geologist)
>
>"Nuclear fuel needs to be sourced out there to be
>feasible, and I'd bet a lot of research has already
>been done and it's done right now in this respect...
>how difficult it is to spot uranium deposits a few MK
>away? ;)"

Darned if I could find it with Google searches, Thor. If you have any links
or leads, please pass them on.

By-the-way, I am an avid collector of meteorites, and have a particular
fondnesss for the metallic variety. I have often wondered whether or not the
parent bodies of these little nuggets would contain uranium and the like in
concentrations large enough to be extracted practically. If so, shouldn't
the craters on the moon also have similar depoisits?

Val