Project Details

Geological Setting

The Douglas River property is in the western Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan. The property is underlain by two dominant lithologic elements: (i) metamorphic basement rocks of Archean and Proterozoic age, which are overlain by (ii) 400 to 800 metres of flat-lying to shallow-dipping, post-metamorphic quartz sandstone of the late Proterozoic Athabasca Group. Basement rocks in the western Athabasca area that underlie the Douglas River region comprise Proterozoic orthogneiss and paragneiss of the Lloyd Domain, which forms part of the Rae Structural Province.

On the Douglas River and adjacent Shea Creek properties, basement lithologies trend north-northwest and dip moderately to shallowly west-southwest. Basement rocks comprise an alternating sequence of granitic gneiss, diorite gneiss, and pelitic gneiss (Kareen Lake Assemblage) which is affected by amphibolite-grade metamorphic assemblages. The latter includes the Saskatoon Lake Conductor, a graphite-bearing pelitic gneiss unit which is spatially associated with uranium mineralization on the adjacent Shea Creek Project, and extends northward onto Douglas River.

The Athabasca sandstone is affected to the north of the Douglas River property by the Paleozoic-age Carswell structure, a circular, probable meteorite impact structure which results in uplift and significant disruption of basement rocks. It is here that the past-producing Cluff Lake uranium deposits have been exposed at surface near the disrupted Athabasca unconformity surface. The effects of the Carswell event are present in the northern Douglas River area.

Exploration Results

Geophysical surveys and drilling indicate that the Saskatoon Lake Conductor and its hosting pelitic gneiss unit, which are associated with uranium mineralization on the adjacent Shea Creek property, continue northward onto the Douglas River property. A second parallel, moderate-strength conductor referred to as the Klark Lake Conductor is also present on both the Douglas River and Shea Creek properties.

Since 1994, fifteen holes totaling 12,623 metres have been drilled on the Douglas River property. Drill holes are widely spaced in this area, but have confirmed the presence of the highly prospective Saskatoon Lake Conductor and the parallel Klark Lake Conductor on the property. These include drill hole DGS-10, drilled on L96+00N approximately 300 metres north-northwest of the Collette Deposit on the Shea Creek property, which intersected uranium mineralization at the sub-Athabasca unconformity grading 0.53% eU₃O₈ over 3.7 metres at a vertical depth of approximately 690 metres. The mineralization consists of sooty pitchblende and coffinite along fracture planes and within the matrix of a hematized tectonic breccia. Base metal minerals such as pyrite, galena, sphalerite and arsenopyrite are associated with the mineralization. Other drill holes on line L96+00N, such as DGS-9 (210 m east of DGS 10) and DGS-11 (80 m west of DGS-10), display anomalous uranium, lead and nickel at the unconformity, which are positive geochemical indicators of potential nearby mineralization. Hole DGS-14, located 145 m west of DGS-10, returned anomalous values of nickel, lead and zinc in the basement.