Apr 13 2017
Appia Energy Corp. (the "Company" or "Appia") today announced the completion of the first seven holes of its diamond drilling program (the "Program") on its Loranger property (the "Property"), located 28 km southeast of Cameco's Rabbit Lake mill, Athabasca Basin, northern Saskatchewan. A total of 1,461 metres of the planned 2,000 metre Program was completed before the ice-road access to the property was declared unsafe.
Four drill holes (LOR-17-004 to LOR-17-007) were targeted to extend radioactivity and low-grade uranium mineralization encountered at surface and to 100 m vertical depth in historical drill holes completed on Royal Canadian Ventures Grid No.2 area. The drill holes confirmed the presence of multiple lenses of anomalous radioactive pegmatites from near surface (19 m) down to 260 m vertical depth, and extended the limit of known anomalous radioactivity 750 m southwest along strike of historic diamond drilling.
The first three drill holes of the Program (LOR-17-001 to LOR-17-003) targeted a gravity low coincident with an EM-defined very weak conductor. The first two drill holes were completed to their planned depths with the third abandoned due to drilling complications within intense structural disruption. The gravity low area is interpreted to result from intense brittle faulting represented by strong to intense fracturing, brecciation, and local fault gouge development with associated alteration including local zones of complete clay alteration, remobilized hematite, massive chloritization, silicification, desilicification, and pervasive limonite staining. No anomalous radioactivity was intersected in this area. See Figure 1 for drill hole trace locations. Drill hole scintillometer results will be posted on the Company's website.
A handheld RS-125 Gamma-Ray Spectrometer/Scintillometer was used to measure all natural gamma radiation in counts-per-second ("cps") in drill core. The reader is cautioned that Appia uses scintillometer readings only as a preliminary indication of the presence of radioactive materials (uranium, thorium and/or potassium), and that scintillometer results may not be used directly to quantify or qualify uranium concentrations of the rock samples measured. The Company considers all RS-125 readings greater than 300 cps to be anomalous radioactivity.
James Sykes, VP Exploration and Development for Appia commented; "The winter drill program successfully delineated a number of parameters important for continued exploration on the Property; 1) the gravity surveys successfully highlighted intense structural zones with a variety of favourable alteration styles, 2) the airborne VTEM survey defined continuous graphite-rich lithological domains with localized structural disruptions, and 3) drilling confirmed the presence of multiple zones of radioactivity. All of these parameters are important for forming high-grade Athabasca-style uranium deposits".
The Program covered only two of 22 previously identified gravity low targets, over 1.2 km of the 94.0 total km of conductive strike length. The Company remains well-funded and intends to continue diamond drilling gravity targets along EM conductors identified on the Property. The drill remains onsite and will be ready for a quick re-start as soon as the ice break-up permits access to the Property.
All rock samples have been sent to the Saskatchewan Research Council's Geoanalytical Laboratory in Saskatoon for further multi-element analysis, and determination of source(s) and concentrations of radioactive materials. Lab analysis results will be announced when completed and reviewed by the Company.