The property is held by Virginia and Denison Mines in a 50-50 joint venture (JV) with Denison as operator.
The drilling is planned for February 2011 and will be preceded by a ground-based Horizontal Loop Electromagnetic (HLEM) survey to refine the position of several shallow conductor targets.
In addition, the JV partners plan ground geophysical surveys in 2011 on the adjacent Murphy Lake property.
The 2011 drilling and geophysical survey will target a historically described, 6km-long conductor system with uranium and base-metal enrichment associated with sulphide mineralization and alteration in sandstone and basement rocks.
The Richardson-Crooked Lake target is located on the shallow northeast margin of the Athabasca Basin with depths to the basement contact targets varying from zero to 120m, well within the limits of low-cost open-pit mining.
While there has been considerable historic drilling in this area, most of the holes were vertical and did not effectively test the steeply dipping conductors.
The association of uranium with very high base-metal values is very encouraging as it is typical of the ‘polymetallic’ class of sandstone-hosted deposits such as Cigar Lake, Roughrider and the Sue A, B, and E deposits.
Most of the holes in this area did not extend far below the unconformity, and therefore, did not adequately test for mineralization in the basement rocks.
