Exploration work undertaken by Southern Cross Resources in the third year of tenure of the subject Yarramba EL 2937, which ended on 28/4/2005, included: • drilling of 8 vertical rotary mud holes for 784 m (YAM044-YAM051) to test historic uranium...
Exploration work undertaken by Southern Cross Resources in the third year of tenure of the subject Yarramba EL 2937, which ended on 28/4/2005, included: • drilling of 8 vertical rotary mud holes for 784 m (YAM044-YAM051) to test historic uranium anomalies in the Yarramba Palaeochannel; and • Drilling of 7 vertical rotary mud holes for 914 m (HML110-HML116) to appraise previously reported uranium mineralisation/anomalism at East Kalkaroo on ML 6109. The holes drilled at East Kalkaroo were designed to refine existing stratigraphic interpretations and to further evaluate the historic low-grade uranium resource using the PFN tool. The downhole geophysical logs and interpreted geology indicated that mineralisation is largely associated with silt- and clay-rich strata which have an apparently high degree of lateral discontinuity of individual layers. To try to find sand-rich uraniferous sediment packages in the East Kalkaroo sedimentary succession that would be much more amenable to in situ leach (ISL) extraction of uranium, it was realised that a lot of extra drilling would be necessary, which is possibly not warranted if this area is in fact stratigraphically unsuitable for hosting significant undiscovered mineralisation. During the following licence year, exploratory drilling on EL 2937 continued in the form of deposit delineation vertical rotary mud drilling at Honeymoon, and vertical RAB/diamond drilling to investigate basement IOCG mineralisation potential at the Maxwell prospect located 2 km south of Honeymoon, which is part of the Honeymoon Granite Project. The Honeymoon Deposit Delineation Drilling Program, of which the latest 12 drillholes (HML253 to HML262, HML285 and HML287 for 1428.6 m) sited on the portion of ML 6109 within EL 2937 were a part, greatly improved the understanding of the Honeymoon deposit. The new setting geological model included recognition of five separate mineable sand packages within the Basal Sand aquifer, and the accurate PFN tool measurement of uranium grade distribution was regarded as having significantly enhanced the design of the planned commercial ISL wellfield, to lead to improved recoveries. To optimise uranium recovery, it will be necessary to mine some of the sand packages individually, and well distribution patterns will need to be orientated to reflect the host sediment fabric. The above program of overall 40 m x 40 m spaced drillholes plus additional closer spaced drilling in a number of locations provided sufficient data to generate a new resource estimate, independently prepared by Ken Bampton of Ore Reserve Evaluation Services, who is a qualified person under NI 43-101. For a full technical report please refer to the Annual Report for EL 3017 South Eagle for the period ending 25/9/2006 (Appendix 2). Work outlined in the report (which includes the HML series drillholes referred to here) includes drillhole and wireline log data, geological interpretations, grade estimations, quality assurance/quality control, petrology and mineralogy determinations, and 3D modelling. In the view of operator Uranium One Australia, the Honeymoon deposit has now been taken through the exploration phase and is being transferred to mining operations, with construction of the mine currently underway. Following commissioning of the mine, additional exploration work will not be required to support full ISL production. However, additional Tertiary uranium exploration is warranted in the Yarramba area, downstream of Honeymoon, where low level anomalies have been intersected, since any additional resources no matter how small could have significant impact to the mine life of Honeymoon. The timing of this investigation is better suited to when Honeymoon is successfully producing. For the Maxwell prospect hard rock exploration campaign, two vertical diamond NQ cored holes for 284.2 m (YAM052C and YAM053C) were completed during March 2006, after first making a total of four RAB pre-collar attempts for an aggregate 356.6 m of open hole penetration. Because of extremely poor drilling conditions, only two of the four RAB attempts were successful, and these open holes were later deepened by diamond coring. One of the RAB holes (for YAM053C) required two attempts to form a stable open precollar. A further RAB hole, intended to be used for a proposed third diamond corehole YAM054C, was abandoned at 66 m depth before it could be completed and cased off. YAM054C had been planned to follow up encouraging indications of increasing uranium mineralisation with depth seen in YAM052C (TD 200.2 m). Two intersections of low level zinc mineralisation were encountered in altered Palaeoproterozoic metasiltstones cored by YAM053C (TD 302.6 m): 13 m @ 2110 ppm Zn from 127-140 m depth, and 3.5 m @ 3160 ppm Zn from 252.5-256 m. However, the tenor of these intercepts was considered typical of the drilled Bimba Formation. [The results of the above Maxwell prospect drilling programme are reported in the appended Final Report for PACE Initiative Collaborative Drilling Project DPY2-19, which report is also held separately as open file Env 11170]. In early December 2005, three traverses of 3D Pulse ground EM survey totalling 7.1 line km were collected over the Maxwell prospect by Outer Rim Exploration Services Pty Ltd. The moving loop EM data refined the basement conductivity anomaly identified by the 2002 Tempest AEM survey. During the fifth and last licence year of EL2937, activities were office-based only and directed towards optimising future geophysical and drilling investigations for the Honeymoon Granite Project. Exploration work carried out during the first year of tenure of renewed EL 3904, ending on 26/8/2008, included: • acquisition of a detailed gravity survey during November-December 2007, with a total of 2562 stations read on a 200 m x 200 m grid over an area located south of Honeymoon; • during a total of 7.2 line km of IP and resistivity data were collected from three traverses, where one line contained 100 m dipole spacing (N=8) and two lines contained 50 m dipole spacings (N=10); • a Native Titleholder cultural heritage site clearance survey was conducted at possible impending drill sites within the tenement; and • drilling of the Honeymoon Granite pluton was continued. A total of 14 vertical rotary mud/NQ diamond tailed holes were put in across two tenements (EL 3904 and adjoining EL 3936 South Eagle); 7 holes (YAM055-YAM061) were completed on the subject Yarramba tenement to test four resistivity/chargeability anomalies, for an aggregate penetration of 1579.9 m. The intersected granite lithology graded from a coarse-grained equigranular quartz-biotite-muscovite ± feldspar granite to biotite gneiss within the vicinity of metre-scale shear zones. 144 selected drill core samples of this granite were submitted for multi-element assaying. Anomalous copper values were returned from sampling small, thin fracture fill veins, but did not appear to Uranium One to be of economic interest at this stage. Although no obvious uranium mineralisation was encountered, the hydrous nature of the granite and its geochemical similarities to other uranium-bearing granites within the Olary Domain suggested that there is strong potential for finding primary uranium mineralisation. The company decided that identification of the loci of deep-rooted faults and shear-zones that intersect the Honeymoon Granite pluton would be the focus of ongoing exploration, prior to doing further drilling.
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