Gondwana Resources has completed an airborne radiometric survey at Red Rock Bore in the Gascoyne Ashburton region of Western Australia.
The company, which has applied for 1,300 square kilometers of tenure across 14 exploration licenses, said the results correlated with the 0.09% uranium geochemical anomoly reported in August 2009. The tenements the company has applied for have been selected for uranium exploration using regional airborne radiometric surveys and the Mindex database of uranium occurrences.
An intensive exploration program is planned for the 2010 field season to include drilling, geochemistry and geophysics after the tenements have been granted. The Red Rock Bore exploration licence application is located on Maroonah station, 320 kilometers south of the port of Dampier.
In August, field investigations including footborne scintillometry and rock chip sampling were carried out by the company’s uranium specialist geologist Syd Morete. The strongest ground radiometric anomaly was located on top of the rock.
Four samples were collected and submitted to Genalysis Laboratory Services for assay using a 4 acid digest and analysis via ICPMS for uranium and certain other elements. Rock chip sample 09RRRK003 returned 946ppm uranium and 15ppm thorium, located at 361153mE-7408776mN. This result suggests the presence of uraninite.
In November 2009, a low level, detailed airborne radiometric survey was conducted by UTS Aeroquest at 20 meters height and 20 meters line spacing using their Fletcher Aircraft.
Mr Warren Beckwith director of Gondwana said that the survey would assist in planning for the work to be carried out immediately the tenement was granted, ground radiometric survey, channel geochemical sampling and a drilling program. He added that "The survey was designed to map the area of surface radiometric response and has located an extensive uranium channel anomaly where expected around the 946ppm U geochemical anomaly discovered in August 2009. In addition, a new and stronger uranium channel anomaly has been identified 550m to the north east. The uranium channel has been processed and ground stripping calibrations have been applied."
Mr Beckwith said that follow up ground work would ascertain whether the rock chip represented a small enriched zone near the surface or was representative of the fresh rock in the whole of the inselberg.
