Infini Resources returns exceptional uranium grades from maiden soil sampling at Portland Creek
Australian energy metals company Infini Resources (ASX: I88) has reported “exceptional” uranium grades from soil sampling at its Portland Creek project in Canada.
The maiden program provided 75 samples taken from a mineralised zone that remains open to the east and west and is coincident with a historic radon gas anomaly.
The samples have been expedited for re-analysis at a laboratory with an upper limit of detection of 15% uranium oxide.
Highest-grade samples
The company reported 17 samples with grades of 11,792 parts per million (or approximately 1.18%) uranium oxide, which is in excess of the laboratory’s upper limits of detection.
Other highlight uranium oxide grades included 10,825ppm, 7,818ppm and 7,122ppm with 52% of all samples returning more than 1,000ppm.
Chief executive officer Charles Armstrong said the results were in line with some of the highest-grade uranium soil samples returned worldwide.
“To see such consistent and high-grade mineralisation is remarkable and suggests we may be very close to a potential discovery of significant scale here at Portland Creek,” he said.
Radon anomalies
Soil sampling at Portland Creek has so far covered only 400 metres of a prospective 3.2km zone defined by historic radiometric data and radon gas surveys.
Mr Armstrong said 23 identified radon gas anomalies are yet to undergo geochemical testing and are considered to be high-priority targets for urgent follow-up.
This will include unmanned aerial vehicle geophysics field work with an immediate focus on sampling of all anomalous structures.
The results are expected to advance Infini towards the definition of drill targets with the aim of discovering a new uranium deposit.
Limited recent exploration
The Portland Creek project covers an area of 149 sq km over a large regional uranium anomaly in Newfoundland.
The anomaly was identified in the 1970s by a government stream sediment sampling program and contains a grab sample that assayed more than 2,180ppm uranium oxide.
The area is believed to have been subject to very limited exploration in recent years.