お知らせ • Apr 16
Standard Uranium Ltd. Reports on Recent Exploration Insights At the Sun Dog Project with Option Partner Aero Energy Ltd
Standard Uranium Ltd. provided a comprehensive summary of exploration insights and historical data gathered at its Sun Dog Uranium Project, currently under a three-year earn-in option agreement with Aero Energy Ltd. Sun Dog Project Overview and Historical Exploration: The Project is currently under option to Aero Energy Ltd. an arms-length company. Pursuant to the Option Agreement, the Optionee will be granted the option to acquire 100% of the Project located along the northwestern edge of the Athabasca Basin, by funding C$6.5 million in exploration expenditures over a three-year period, making cash payments totalling C$650,000, and issuing C$650,000 in common shares, over a 2-year period. Following exercise of the Sun Dog Option, Standard will retain a 2% net smelter returns royalty, which may be reduced to 1% for a $1,000,000 cash payment. The Project covers an area of 48,443 acres in nine mining claims, located 15 km from Uranium City on the northern margin of the Athabasca Basin. It hosts the historical Gunnar Uranium Mine, discovered in 1952, which doubled Canada’s uranium production and became the largest uranium producer globally in 1956. The Gunnar Mine produced approximately 18M lbs of U3O8 between 1953 and 19811. During this time exploration efforts in the area primarily focused on “Beaverlodge-style” deposits, typically lower-grade, fault-hosted mineralization visible at the surface. This approach did not target, and would not have been effective for, the high-grade "Unconformity-related" basement-hosted deposits associated with graphitic rocks more recently discovered near the Athabasca Basin's edge. These deposits are associated with graphite-rich rocks, evident as electromagnetic (EM) conductors in geophysical surveys. These graphite-rich rocks, softer than surrounding quartzite and granitoid lithologies, are not exposed at the surface. Instead, they are found in deeply weathered valleys, concealed by glacial till, soil and small lakes. The historical exploration methods applied included airborne radiometric and surface prospecting, identifying radioactive anomalies and drill testing their extents. This approach is not effective for this type of basement-hosted mineralization. With only limited previous drilling, the extensive (>40 km strike length) conductors targeted at Sun Dog remain largely unexplored, offering significant potential for future discovery. Preliminary Modern Exploration Recent exploration efforts by Standard Uranium have focused on the most promising historical target areas, namely Skye, Java, and Stewart Island, testing down-dip extensions of structures hosting uranium at surface with the aim of discovering high-grade unconformity mineralization and basement “roots” of the mineralizing systems underlying the Athabasca sandstones. Prospecting & Surface Exploration In the fall of 2020, crews collected 56 outcrop grab samples, 6 boulder samples, and 14 historical core samples from the Project. These were primarily collected from mineralized target areas and from historical drill holes completed by former operators of the project. Prospecting led to the discovery of a new high-grade uranium showing named the Haven discovery and several zones of visible uranium mineralization at surface that returned uranium assay results of 3.58% U3O8, 1.7% U3O8, and 0.7% U3O8. Additionally, the analytical results revealed a correlation between uranium and gold, while boron and other pathfinder elements highlighted the potential for a robust alteration footprint associated with uranium mineralization. Surficial grab samples from faults and veins cutting sandstone outcrop returned high concentrations of dravite (up to 75%), a uranium pathfinder mineral commonly associated with uranium-fertile systems. In the summer of 2022, Standard Uranium executed a field mapping and prospecting program to expand upon the results of the 2020 prospecting program. Scintillometers were used to track radioactivity with more than 80 new mineralized boulder and bedrock locations discovered on Johnston and Stewart islands. The expanded surface expression of mineralization on south Johnston Island displayed scintillometer readings >10,000 cps and locally off-scale (>65,535 cps) and the historical mineralized surface occurrences on Stewart Island were confirmed with scintillometer measurements ranging from >500 cps to >65,535 cps. Radioactivity measurements were collected with hand-held RS-121 or RS-125 scintillometers. These occurrences provide compelling support for the presence of high-grade unconformity-associated uranium mineralization on the project. Gravity and Magnetic Surveys In the winter of 2022, MWH Geo-Surveys Ltd. carried out a ground gravity survey and UAV-borne magnetic surveys in the areas of Johnston and Stewart islands on behalf of Standard Uranium. The gravity survey consisted of 3,388 unique gravity measurement stations and 155 repeat stations with a station spacing of 50 to 100 m. The survey identified several variations in residual gravity and outlined multiple gravity low target areas on and around Stewart and Johnston islands. The magnetic survey consisted of 572 line-kilometres of UAV magnetics at a line spacing of 50 m. Flightlines were flown either southeast or northwest at an elevation of approximately 48 m above ground level. The survey effectively mapped magnetic variations corresponding to changes in lithology and alteration which assisted in drill targeting. First Pass Drilling Standard Uranium carried out two drill programs on the Project during the winters of 2022 and 2023. In total 2,469 m of diamond drilling was completed across fourteen drill holes. Drilling focused on testing for zones of high-grade unconformity-related uranium mineralization with targets identified based on the ground gravity and UAV magnetic data, lakebed radiometric anomalies, and resistivity lows, all coincident with cross-cutting faults and historical surface mineralization. Several gravity low anomalies have been identified and coincide with breaks or flexures in electromagnetic conductors under Athabasca sandstone cover, interpreted to potentially represent zones of strong alteration in bedrock, specifically clay alteration, commonly associated with the footprint of high-grade uranium deposits. The 2022 and 2023 diamond drill programs were successful in identifying key geological characteristics prospective for significant uranium mineralizing systems on the Project, which in turn will aid in planning and prioritization of additional exploration targets for follow-up drill programs.