The younger granite in El-Yatima area, Central Eastern Desert, cropped out as an isolated mass intruding the older granitic rocks with sharp contacts. It is of pink to reddish color, equigranular of hypidiomorphic texture being porphyritic in places. It is composed of plagioclase, quartz, perthite and biotite as the main constituent minerals. Petrological and geochemical data assigned the studied granite as monzogranite that exhibits calcalkaline with weak peraluminous affinity, magmatic nature which is emplaced in within-plate tectonic environment as A-type granite. Its uranium content is of magmatic origin which is probably leached from its bearing metamectized zircon. El-Yatima monzogranite is characterized by low fractionated REE pattern [Av. (La/Lu)n = 1.86] with slight enrichment of LREE [Av. (La/Sm)n = 1.46] relative to approximate flat HREE [Av. (Gd/Lu)n = 0.93]. The modeled REE data supports the bulk continental crust (B.C.C.) as a parent source of El-Yatima monzogranite melt which had evolved through 70% partial melting of the parent source followed by 30% fractional crystallization.
The study area lies at the southeastern part of Sinai Peninsula along the western bank of Gulf of Aqaba occupying the extreme southern part of the Arabian-Nubian Shield. Dahab area is mainly covered by volcanic rocks, younger gabbros, younger granites and pegmatites. The pegmatite bodies of the study area are abundant, hosted in monzogranites and distinguished into zoned and unzoned types. They are found as lenticular pocket and vein-like bodies. Some of these pegmatite bodies have abnormal radioactivity. Radionuclide measurements of younger granites show that their equivalent uranium content (eU) ranges between 6 ppm and 11 ppm, while their equivalent thorium (eTh) varies from 13 ppm to 26 ppm. The average contents of U and Th of the anomalous pegmatites are 88.6 ppm and 107.9 ppm, respectively indicating their uraniferous nature. Geochemically, Both monzogranites and pegmatites have high K-calc alkaline characters, metaluminous and peralkaline natures, intruded in withinplate condition, derived from magma of crustal materials source of moderate fractionation. The Mineralogical investigations of anomalous pegmatites revealed the presence of secondary uranium mineral (autunite), in addition to thorite, uranothorite, zircon, monazite and columbite. Primary and secondary radioactive mineralizations indicating that the mineralization is not only magmatic, but also post-magmatic.
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