Southern Uranium Limited (Southern Uranium) has raised the exploration priority of the company’s new 100% owned Northern Yorke Peninsula tenement EL4278 and brought forward planned gravity surveying and drill testing of the project. The 1,000 sq km tenement area east of Bute township was granted to Southern Uranium on June 30, 2009 and includes at least 30 km of the northern extension to the Pine Point Fault Zone (PPFZ).

The PPFZ hosts the new Hillside copper gold and uranium discoveries made by Rex Minerals Limited (Rex) that are situated 60km south of EL 4278. These discoveries elevated the prospectivity of the PPFZ as an important regional structure with IOCGU potential.

Southern Uranium identified the extensions to the PPFZ and applied for the Northern Yorke Peninsula project area in January this year immediately following Rex’s announcement of significant exploration progress at Hillside.

John Anderson, managing director of the company said Southern Uranium had already identified two magnetic targets in the PPFZ, referred to as the Ridgeback targets, with signatures of similar dimensions to the Hillside target.

“However we expect to define other shallow IOCGU targets with extensive gravity surveying planned to start soon,” Anderson said. “The Hillside discovery in 2008 supported an industry-wide assessment that more IOCGU discoveries would be made in the Gawler Craton following the Prominent Hill and Carrapateena discoveries respectively made in 2001 and 2005. Our project on northern Yorke Peninsula is in one of the prime IOCGU prospective positions in the Gawler Craton and we will be drill testing at the earliest opportunity.”

Southern Uranium’s gravity surveying will seek gravity signatures for non-magnetic haematite-dominant targets adjacent to the new Ridgeback magnetic targets, but these non-magnetic haematite metal targets may also occur elsewhere in the PPFZ.

“Southern Uranium is giving the Northern Yorke Peninsula project its highest priority and aims to be drilling the Ridgeback magnetic and anticipated new gravity targets over the coming summer,” Anderson said.

“Ridgeback is a great acquisition for Southern Uranium that complements our ground breaking geochemical approach on Eyre Peninsula and adds to our drive to diversify into copper gold as well as uranium exploration.

“We are looking forward to developing the area’s potential by applying our team’s extensive exploration experience at Mount Isa and Broken Hill to our proposed program at Ridgeback.”