Engineering News and Mining Weekly
Uranium explorer expands portfolio
Uranium exploration company Skyharbour Resources has acquired several new prospective uranium exploration claims through online staking and through an agreement with exploration and project generating company Eagle Plains Resources, contributing to Skyharbour’s large property portfolio.
These 100%-owned claims are located in Northern Saskatchewan, in Canada, adding an additional 30 184 ha to Skyharbour’s existing holdings in and around the Athabasca basin, which is host to high-grade uranium deposits and is consistently ranked as a top mining jurisdiction by research institution the Fraser Institute.
As Skyharbour remains focused on its co-flagship Russell Lake and Moore uranium projects, these new claims will become a part of Skyharbour’s prospect generator business as the company seeks strategic partners to advance them.
The drill-ready Foster property consists of 15 claims totalling 6 362 ha, about 20 km east of Cameco’s Key Lake operation and adjoining the southwestern end of Skyharbour’s Falcon project, which is currently optioned out to exploration company North Shore Energy Metals.
The Foster claims are situated in the Wollaston Domain just outside the currently mapped extent of the Athabasca basin, with several small outliers of sandstone located regionally in the area.
The claims acquired from Eagle Plains host geology favourable for uranium and rare earth element (REE) mineralisation, with two significant mineralised areas including the Great Plains Showing and the Red October Zone.
There are numerous untested coincident geochemical and geophysical anomalies, many of which are drill ready, with significant “encouraging” exploration activities having been undertaken to date in search of pegmatiteand fault-hosted uranium mineralisation.
Exploration in the Eagle Lake area at these claims between 1969 and the early 1980s resulted in the discovery of the Great Plains Showing.
Exploration programmes here, including diamond drilling, intersected intense alteration and shearing, as well as high Radon 222 values.
Notably, pitchblende mineralisation was discovered in veins associated with fault structures; however, a comprehensive programme was recommended but never carried out, owing to changing uranium market fundamentals.
Another mineralised zone, the Red October Zone, was discovered in 2008 by Eagle Plains, and consists of a 400 m intermittent uranium and REE-mineralised outcrop within a 1 km coincident soil geochemical and ground magnetic anomaly.
The Red October Zone was drill-tested in 2012, with all six holes encountering anomalous uranium and REEs.
Elsewhere on the broader property package, prospective graphitic mineralisation is exposed at the surface.
In addition to these zones, the Foster project contains several other uraniferous occurrences, which often also host elevated REEs and/or thorium, and with samples collected on the property returning up to 657 parts per million (ppm) uranium, 6 644 ppm total rareearth elements and 344 ppm thorium.
Skyharbour reports that significant untested potential exists on the Foster project for basement-hosted, unconformity-related uranium deposits like those further to the north in the Wollaston Domain – including Eagle Point, Rabbit Lake, Key Lake and others – as well as for additional pegmatite-hosted uranium, thorium and REE mineralisation.
Skyharbour plans to seek a partner company to partner with and advance Foster as a part of its prospect generator business. Eagle Plains will retain a 2% net smelter return (NSR) royalty for the Foster project, subject to reduction on certain claims by underlying NSR agreements.
Properties Recently Staked
Skyharbour recently acquired other uranium properties consisting of seven claims, totalling 23 822 ha in and around the Athabasca basin.
One claim was staked on the northern edge of Skyharbour’s Karin project, increasing the extent of the Karin project to a total of 25 165 ha in the Highrock Lake area.
The new claim is underlain by prospective Wollaston Supergroup metasedimentary types of rock, which are known to host uranium, thorium and REE mineralisation elsewhere in the Wollaston Domain.
While no modern geological work has been undertaken on this new claim, the most recent work comprised airborne input electromagnetic (EM) and magnetic survey and prospecting in 1980, which detected a weak EM anomaly on this claim.
Four additional claims totalling 13 026 ha were staked at the Pluto Bay project area located about 14 km north of the Athabasca basin, just east of the Snowbird tectonic zone.
Minimal modern exploration has been undertaken on the property in which the four additional claims are found, which is prospective for basement-hosted unconformity-related uranium mineralisation. In addition, another two claims totalling 9 896 ha were staked in the Newham Lake area.
The claims are underlain by Athabasca sandstone ranging in thickness from less than 80 m, to just over 200 m.
Several historical and modern EM conductors are present on these claims, which are along trend of EM conductors extensively drill tested by exploration companies SMDC, JNR Resources and ALX Resources.
The claims were subject to a variety of geophysical surveys, prospecting, geochemical surveying, and geological mapping between 1969 to 1983, when work was paused until the mid-2000s. Skyharbour concludes that several modern EM, magnetic, radiometric and gravity surveys were flown over portions of the property between 2005 and 2011; however no modern ground exploration has taken place on the property, which is highly prospective for unconformity-related uranium mineralisation.