Oct 17 2017
Plateau Uranium Inc., a uranium and lithium exploration and development company, is pleased to announce that it has signed the first agreement with the local community of Chaccaconiza to explore a highly prospective area in the south central region of the Company’s extensive mineral concessions in southeastern Peru.
Initial prospecting has led to new uranium mineralization discovered at surface. Five large areas of strong radioactivity have been identified – the largest has an area over 2 square km (km2).
Highlights
- Initial Exploration Access Agreement signed with Chaccaconiza community – duration 6 months
- This is the first access to highly prospective area located in south central project area immediately north of Bear Creek’s Corani silver project
- 5 large areas with high background radioactivity discovered through prospecting in 2 months of work
- Visible Uranium mineralization observed at surface in excess of 100,000 counts per second (cps) at numerous locations
- Initial surface sampling yields uranium assay values up to 8,281 ppm U (up to 1% U3O8)
- Falchani – the largest and highest prospectivity area covers an area >2 km2
- Significant discoveries in older volcanic rocks than previously known Macusani uranium-lithium deposits signals that the entire, under-explored land package remains highly prospective
- Immediate plans to drill test Falchani with at least 2 diamond drill holes, possibly more, subject to financing.
Ted O’Connor, CEO of Plateau Uranium stated: “We are extremely pleased our Peru team has been able to successfully negotiate exploration access with Chaccaconiza – our newest local community partner on the Macusani Plateau. After the first month on the ground, these strong initial prospecting and sampling discoveries have exceeded our expectations. What is most exciting to me is that we have not seen this large and extensive an area of high background radioactivity with surface uranium mineralization in all the years we have been working on the plateau. We are planning a small initial diamond drill program as follow up to test the compelling Falchani target.”
Details
The Company successfully negotiated access with Chaccaconiza community through our Peruvian team. Chaccaconiza has agreed to allow initial on-ground exploration work to be completed within 6 months, including: preparing access roads, establishing drill platforms as well as drilling. In addition, Chaccaconiza has agreed to allow the environmental baseline work to include their communal lands. Even though this community is far from the Company’s existing uranium deposits, this is significant as Chaccaconiza territory extends northward to include some of the proposed process plant infrastructure anticipated in the 2016 PEA.
Prospecting and sampling work has been on-going for the past 2 months with several uranium occurrences discovered at 5 main areas. Several of the surface showings have visible uranium mineralization with radioactivity of 25,000 to 100,000 cps (the limit of the scintillometers and spectrometers used for uranium prospecting).
Chemical assays have just been received from the initial 32 grab samples submitted to CERTIMIN Laboratories in Lima. The results range from 7 to 9,766 ppm U3O8 with 12 samples exceeding 0.1% U3O8 and Li values ranging from 48.3 to 1140 ppm Li with 16 samples exceeding 400 ppm Li.
A recent site visit by Management included a trip to Chaccaconiza to review the results of the initial few weeks of prospecting work and discuss and plan potential future drill targets. Prospecting work has continued over the past 2 months aimed at extending the discoveries and developing/refining drill targets.
This discovery is significant because all previously known uranium deposits discovered and drilled to date are located in the uppermost/youngest volcanic rhyolite units located in the northeastern project area. The Chaccaconiza discoveries are located at higher elevations, but are hosted by the lower/oldest rhyolite units of the Quenemari volcanics. This highlights the prospectivity of the Company’s entire project area with many concessions remaining un-explored and under-explored.
The Falchani occurrence covers ~2 km2 area of elevated radioactivity and shows the highest prospectivity directly at surface. The neighbouring Iglesiani showing is located 2.5 km to the southeast of Falchani, and although located at a similar elevation, it is believed to be a slightly different stratigraphic level possibly due to faulting related to the valley separating the two occurrences.
The Company is currently following up this new discovery at Falchani with a 4-6 diamond drill hole program as an initial drill test.
Sampling Methodology and QA/QC
Natural gamma radiation from outcrop prospecting reported in this news release was measured in counts per second (cps) using Exploranium GR-135 gamma-ray scintillometer/spectrometers. The reader is cautioned that total count gamma scintillometer measurements may not be directly or uniformly related to uranium contents in the samples measured; they should be used only as an indication of the presence of radioactive minerals.
Outcrop samples were collected using geological hammer at/near surface. Samples were labelled, bagged and sealed and submitted to Certimin’s sample analytical laboratory in Lima for sample preparation, processing and ICP-MS/OES multi-element analysis. Certimin is an ISO 9000 certified assay laboratory. The program was designed to include a comprehensive analytical quality assurance and control routine comprising the systematic use of Company inserted standards, blanks, field duplicate samples and internal laboratory standards.
Qualified Persons
Mr. Ted O’Connor, P.Geo., CEO and a Director of Plateau Uranium and a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information contained in this news release.