Project Details

Geological Setting

The Northern Athabasca property is underlain by 100 to 500 metres of Proterozoic sandstone of the Athabasca Group that dips shallowly to the south. The sandstone unconformably overlies Archean-aged basement rocks of the Tantato Domain, which comprise metavolcanic units, graphite-bearing metasedimentary gneiss, mafic sills and granites that have been affected by amphibolite to granulite facies metamorphism. Extensive Archean mylonitic shear zones are developed in the region, including the Black Lake Shear Zone east of the project, which defines the boundary between the Tantato Domain and the Mudjatik Domain. Basement rocks trend mainly northeast, and are affected by tight, megascopic folds.

Exploration Activities and Results

UEX Corporation staked the five Northern Athabasca Projects in 2004 and, beginning in 2005, carried out "first-pass" airborne exploration programs that included a MEGATEM(r) airborne survey over the properties to better assess the potential for the project area to host unconformity-style uranium mineralization. Several areas were noted for follow-up work including additional ground geophysics and/or testing by diamond drilling.

In 2006, a ground-based Fixed Loop time-domain electromagnetic ("TDEM") survey carried out at the Butler Lake Project further refined previous airborne EM anomalies, in particular a conductive trend which lies in an up-ice direction from a radioactive, highly-altered sandstone boulder found during historical prospecting in the area.

UEX also carried out diamond drilling in 2006 on four of the Northern Athabasca Projects to follow up on the preceding geophysical programs. On Munroe Lake, hole MNL-02 encountered strong dravite alteration in the sandstone. At Butler Lake, anomalous uranium values with up to 5 to 10 times background were observed in drill holes in the basal 30 metres of sandstone. A subsequent borehole electromagnetic survey of holes BTL-01 and BTL-02 indicated that a strong flat-lying basement conductor lies about 50 metres below the end of both holes.

A Fixed Loop TDEM survey carried out on two separate grids on the Munroe Lake Project in 2007 confirmed several conductive trends that were first identified by the 2005 airborne EM survey. A DC resistivity survey was carried out over several of these conductive trends to test for the presence of hydrothermal alteration in the Athabasca sandstone associated with the conductor.

Diamond drilling in 2007 consisted of four holes and the extension of one previous hole. At Butler Lake, hole BTL 02 was deepened in order to intersect the conductor identified by a borehole electromagnetic survey. The extension hole intersected numerous thin layers of fresh to chloritized and sheared amphibolite containing 1-5% disseminated pyrrhotite. Two additional holes at Butler Lake tested tested the possible up dip and strike extensions of the conductive zone intersected in BTL-02. In addition, two holes were drilled on the Jacques Point Project to test ground TDEM conductors offset by faults interpreted from magnetics. No graphitic conductors were intersected in these four holes and no significant geochemical results were returned.