Infini Resources (ASX: I88) has received a green light from Newfoundland’s Mines Department to proceed with its proposed maiden diamond drilling program, designed to follow up sensational soil sample responses at its Portland Creek uranium project in Canada.
Due to lack of road access, it plans to mobilise the drill rig to site by helicopter in late January and has slated an around-the-clock program to complete 23 core holes over six to eight weeks.
The program aims to probe the significance of highly anomalous uranium soil sample responses from the company’s key Talus prospect at Portland Creek that include uranium oxide results up to 7.5 per cent in 17 resample results which average better than 29,317 parts per million (ppm) - or 2.9 per cent uranium oxide.
Other important geochemical contexts and associations to be investigated include high uranium pathfinder elements, thorium values above 65ppm, anomalous lead isotope (Pb206: Pb204) ratios to a peak value of 46.54, and a continuous 1.25km-long envelope of radiometric signatures exceeding 28ppm of elemental uranium.
The radiometric trend extends south of the main envelope for a further 875m, represented by two smaller envelopes above 28ppm uranium, which lie directly along strike from the main radiometric contour.
The uranium anomalism appears to lie within a north-northeast trending structural corridor between the granite-sediment contact and a major fault. The same trend is thought to be related to a prominent fault scarp on its eastern margin.
Infini hopes that - among many other aspects to be resolved - the drilling may go some way to clarifying the major fault’s location and the degree to which it may be a conduit for uranium mineralisation.
Within this interpreted structural corridor, some significant north-east and north-west trending complementary link structures could form a key part of the local plumbing system hosting mineralisation. The trends are possible tensional shears in response to movement along the corridor’s flanking faults.
Some of these link structures intersect within the area of the high uranium results and the centre of the main radiometric envelope.
Infini says it plans to drill the target area with overlapping holes initially along east-west lines spaced at 100m, with drill lines proposed to be closed-up to 50m spacing in the event of initial encouragement.
The company says the final number of drill holes and hole depths will depend on continuous assessment of each drill hole as the program progresses. The hole depths and dips will be adjusted according to their proximity to the major eastern scarp fault and the angle of the fault itself.
This rapid permitting reaffirms that we continue to operate in a pro-uranium, tier one mining jurisdiction in Newfoundland, Canada. We have a special project here that has the potential to contain multiple new high grade uranium discoveries.
Infini Resources’ Managing Director and CEO Charles Armstrong
Armstrong said he hopes the source of the world class uranium soil anomaly, with a peak result of 7.5 per cent uranium oxides, will be explained by significant bedrock uranium mineralisation.
Activities planned for the diamond drilling include conventional core logging and downhole telesurveys to collect lithological, structural, gamma, density and radiometric data.
Handheld spectrometer readings will also be taken routinely as the core is pulled to provide quick responses on uranium detection before the core gets sent to the laboratory.
Other proposed work includes an expanded UAV litho-structural interpretation, with the results expected to be released in the next couple of weeks.
A second diamond drill permit application will be made when the southern geochemical anomalies and associated structural interpretation have been assessed, with the chance of a second rig being mobilised in early in February.
The intensity of the uranium anomalism and its cohesive contours and apparent structural associations point to a potentially significant primary uranium source nearby.
Surface mapping is frustrated by extensive surface talus (scree) cover and diamond drilling with a light and highly mobile transportable rig is the only means of peering into the prospect’s depths and acquiring high quality material for examination and analysis.
This initial phase of Infini’s drilling will almost certainly have uranium watchers’ whiskers twitching with anticipation.
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