The results are based on drill core samples obtained from the project’s first cored holes. Maximum values were 1,625 ppm U3O8 over a 7.5cm interval – Big Lake 20 Prospect, and 864 ppm U3O8 over a 10cm interval – Big Lake 28 Prospect.
Roland Hill, managing director of Crescent Gold, said: “Assays of this magnitude enhance the significance of our announcement on 25 September 2009 of the discovery of extensive sedimentary uranium anomalism hosted in the Namba Formation sediments of Tertiary age.
“The discovery of strong uranium grades in bounding clays is indicative of the passage of a strongly mineralised system through adjacent permeable sands. We plan to explore these channel sands down hydraulic dip in search of uranium mineralisation retained within the sands themselves. Sandstone hosted uranium mineralisation of this style is potentially amenable to low cost, low impact solution mining techniques.”
Complete cores were obtained through the mineralised intervals providing high-quality samples, which were assayed using pressed powder XRF by Genalysis Laboratories. The uranium mineralisation at both localities has been found to occur in dark clays directly underlying oxidised channel sands.
Crescent Gold said that it does not consider the clay-hosted mineralisation to itself be amenable to solution mining recoveries. The company is targeting channel sand-hosted uranium in the upper Tertiary age Namba Formation as an analogue of discoveries elsewhere in the Lake Eyre Basin at the Beverley, Four Mile and Honeymoon. It is also targeting the discovery of extensive solution-front uranium mineralisation in the lower Tertiary age Eyre Formation as an analogue of the largest sandstone hosted uranium deposits, found in Kazakhstan, central Asia, the company said.
Exploration programmes are planned for 2010 across the large tenement position the joint venture partners have secured surrounding these anomalies. These will target both the Namba and underlying Eyre Formation. Crescent Gold is earning into the Sturt project from joint-venture partner TC Development Corporation.
