Terra Uranium steps up exploration activities in Athabasca Basin

Terra Uranium (ASX: T92) is well placed to accelerate activities in its large land holdings in what is regarded as the worlds’ richest uranium plays – Canada’s Athabasca Basin.

The company holds a 100% interest in 22 Claims covering a total of 1,008 sq km known as the HawkRock project, the Parker Lake project and the Pasfield Lake project, located in the Cable Bay Shear Zone (CBSZ) on the eastern side of the Athabasca Basin in north-eastern Saskatchewan.

The projects are approximately 80 km to the west of multiple operating large uranium mills, mines and known deposits.

Busy exploration period

Terra revealed it had been successful in the northern spring phase of its maiden exploration program in its Athabasca Basin projects after exploration permits were granted for 3 years by the Saskatchewan government.

Exploration work undertaken during the quarter included diamond drilling, RC geochemical sampling, ground geophysics and helium sampling.

RC hole geochemical analyses at the Parker and Pasfield Lake Project identified a combination of uranium, pathfinder element and clay results above local and regional backgrounds in 7 of the 9 holes drilled.

Terra believes that of the 7 enriched holes, 2 are considered to have the highest potential and represent robust stacked anomalies.

Notably, coincident geological and geophysical anomalies, including strong ZTEM basement conductors, ANT velocity low at the unconformity, a basement magnetic susceptibility low, and strong VTEM conductivity in sandstone are considered indicative of potential mineralisation at the target basal unconformity.

Meanwhile, results from ground electromagnetics surveys over key uranium drill targets at Parker and Pasfield have provided indications of strong basement conductors.

Maiden diamond hole drilled

Terra was also successful in drilling a maiden diamond drill hole of 1083.2m at the Parker project.

This was Terra’s first diamond hole in the Parker Lake project area and the first within this 25km zone of ZTEM basement conductors on this section of the Cable Bay Shear Zone.

The hole, which was the first of five targets along this zone to be tested, intersected 1.5m of elevated radioactivity. Readings averaged 1,050 cps over the 1.5m enveloping an unconformity, with a high of 2,000 counts per second (cps). The company is now awaiting geochemical analysis of cores obtained from the hole.

Terra is also preparing to undertake further work including Ambient Noise Tomography (ANT) surveys, reconnaissance sampling, mapping, reprocessing all layers of geophysical data (gravity, magnetics and EM), completion of a full district-scale structural analysis, and interpretation of further helium results which are yet to be received.

In the meantime, the company is working on the construction of a 3D Earth Model in preparation for the next drill campaign.

Executive chairman, Andrew Vigar, said the next phase of diamond drilling will test a range of exploration targets developed in-house.

“The presence of elevated radioactivity in our first drill hole at Parker, subject to confirmatory assays, is a very encouraging result and confirms that the Cable Bay Shear Zone is a fertile structure to host major uranium deposits, which are the focus of T92’s exploration discovery efforts.”

The company has developed an exploration framework to improve discovery success rates using proximal pathfinders, which includes a mix of geochemistry and geophysics to de-risk core drilling target selection.

Exploration results and plans are reviewed monthly by the board of directors and are used to refine the novel framework under which exploration will be conducted, with diamond drilling of the best responding geophysical and geochemical targets only proceeding when technically acceptable.

Mr Vigar said the 2023 exploration program continues to de-risk current diamond drill targets and provide positive results for future target areas.