Watson


South Australian Projects

Watson Project - Western Gawler Craton

Uranium Equities holds a 50% interest in EL's 3323 & 3313 and 3800 in Joint Venture with Intermet Resources Limited. The exploration target is Beverley 4 Mile style, sandstone-hosted, roll-front, uranium mineralisation in the large Tertiary palaeochannel system located approximately 200km northwest of Ceduna in the far west of South Australia.

A large basal Tertiary palaeochannel system is present beneath Nullarbor Limestone in this region of the eastern Eucla Basin. Uraniferous sources rocks within the Gawler Craton are present to the north and east. A large project-scale airborne TEMPEST EM survey has successfully delineated the detail of this Tertiary palaeochannel system throughout the entire project area.

Exploratory Water drilling on EL3323 by nearby tenement holder Iluka Resources in 2006 reported anomalous uranium within drillhole samples (up to 70ppm U3O8) and within groundwater (up to 602ppb U3O8). These values are interpreted to be indicative of a potentially mineralized system.

Preliminary reconnaissance drilling was completed by Uranium Equities in 2008. 9 holes totaling 621m were completed as part of the reconnaissance drilling program. Drilling was planned to investigate a potential uranium depositional site in the northeastern part of the palaeochannel. This site is characterised by a 10km trend of oxidized and reduced sands with anomalous uranium present in water bore sample cuttings. See Figure 1.

 

Figure 1: Drill hole locations and representative wireline log for WT004, north-eastern Watsons channel.
 

Difficult drilling conditions were encountered in penetrating the overlying Nullabor Limestone requiring suspension of the program until a suitable drilling rig is available.

Results confirm the validity of the exploration model, with significant uranium and gamma anomalism encountered in holes WT001, WT004, WT005 and WT006 related to thick sequences of both oxidized and reduced sands near the channel margin. The best intersection was 390 counts per second in hole WT0004 with equivalent grade at 100ppm eU3O8 over 1.8m[1]. The presence of anomalous uranium within the channel confirms that the sedimentary sequence is uranium-bearing.

Additional drilling and wireline logging is planned to follow up the encouraging results and to evaluate the remainder of the large palaeochannel system.