A review and resource estimate of the Redtree group of uranium deposits, Westmoreland, (sic Westmorland) held by Laramide Resources Ltd

Abstract

This is a report for Laramide intended to satisfy Part 4 Section 4.1 (1) of Canada's National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. It is not a report under the NT Mining Act. This report is both a review of historical mineral resource estimates and a summary of new geology models and resource estimates developed by Mining Associates for the Redtree group of uranium deposits at Westmorland in northwest Queensland, Australia. The Redtree deposits are held by Laramide Resources Ltd ('Laramide') through its 100% owned Australian subsidiary Westmorland Resources Pty Ltd ('Westmorland'). The tenements are in name of Westmorland's 100% owned subsidiary Tackle Resources Pty Ltd. Westmorland is a private company with its registered office located in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Westmorland has 3 Exploration Permits for Minerals ('EPMs') and 2 EPM Applications ('EPMAs') located in the State of Queensland, Australia, contiguous with 4 Exploration Licences and 3 EL Applications located in the Northern Territory, Australia. At the request of Mr Peter Mullens, Director of Laramide, Mining Associates Pty Ltd was commissioned in June 2006 to prepare a Technical Report on previous resource estimates at Redtree. The Redtree deposits are located within a group of mineral tenements controlled by Laramide that extend for 200 km east-west and 150 km north-south, straddling the Queensland-NT border. For the sake of simplicity the area is collectively referred to in this report as Westmoreland but the area for which resource estimates have been made as the 'Redtree group' as there are other prospects within the tenements that have not as yet been quantified. Westmoreland is located in a region known as the Gulf Country, which includes the southern shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria and the country around the many rivers that flow into the Gulf. It is the largest tropical savannah region in Australia, with an area of 425,000 sq km. The Westmoreland region was probably first prospected in the 1890s, after the discovery in 1887 of silver-lead deposits at Lawn Hill, 100 km south. Pitchblende was found in the Pandanus Creek area of the Northern Territory in 1955 by prospector R T Norris and mined in the late 1950s. In early November 1956 the Australian federal government Bureau of Mineral Resources ('BMR') commenced an airborne scintillometer survey of the Westmoreland area. Anomalies located by the BMR were notified to the holders of mineral tenements in the area as soon as they came to hand, together with a comment as to their relative value. While following up one of these anomalies in the second week of November 1956, a promising occurrence of torbernite was found in the Westmoreland Conglomerate, in the vicinity of Westmorland, by prospector A Blackwell from Mount Isa Mines Limited. The deposit was given the name Redtree. Exploration by various companies through the next 15 years discovered numerous other deposits and prospects, and a significant resource of uranium was delineated. Exploration continued in the Westmoreland region through the 1970s and 1980s. By 1990 CRA Ltd held a dominant interest in tenements in the region. An internal reorganisation saw CRA absorbed into the Rio Tinto group, which by 1996 had published an inferred resource of 17.4Mt @ 0.12% U3O8 containing 20,900 tonnes of U3O8 (Rheinberger et al, 1998). Rio Tinto relinquished the EPMs in 2000 and subsequently Tackle Resources Pty Ltd filed applications over the areas previously held by Rio Tinto. Tackle was subsequently purchased by Westmorland. The Westmoreland region lies within the Palaeoproterozoic Murphy Tectonic Ridge, which separates the Palaeoproterozoic Mt Isa Inlier from the Mesoproterozoic McArthur Basin and the flanking Neoproterozoic South Nicholson Basin. The oldest rocks exposed in the area are early Proterozoic sediments, volcanics and intrusives which were deformed and regionally metamorphosed prior to 1875 Ma. These Murphy Metamorphics are represented mainly by phyllitic to schistose metasediments and quartzite. They are overlain by two Proterozoic cover sequences laid down after the early deformation and metamorphism of the basement, and before a period of major tectonism which began at about 1620 Ma. The oldest cover sequence is the Cliffdale Volcanics unit, which unconformably overlies the Murphy Metamorphics. The Cliffdale Volcanics are comagmatic with the Nicholson Granite and together they comprise the Nicholson Suite. SHRIMP dating of both the Nicholson Granite and the Cliffdale Volcanics gave an age of 1850 Ma. The Nicholson Granite is predominantly I-type granodiorite in composition. Unconformably overlying the Nicholson Suite is the Tawallah Group. This is the oldest segment of the southern McArthur Basin. The base is a sequence of conglomerates and sandstones comprising the Westmoreland Conglomerate. The conglomerates thin out to the southeast and are in turn conformably overlain by the Seigal Volcanics, an andesitic to basic sequence containing interbedded agglomerates, tuffs and sandstones. Together these units comprise about two-thirds of the total thickness of the Tawallah Group. The Seigal Volcanics are overlain in turn by the McDermott Formation, the Sly Creek Sandstone, the Aquarium Formation and the Settlement Creek Volcanics. The principal uranium deposits are contained within the Westmoreland Conglomerate. The deposits are associated with an altered basic dyke system intruded along faults. Mineralisation is present in both the sandstones and dyke rocks. It is postulated that the conglomerate had a high inherent uranium content that was remobilised in a convective cell system, possibly triggered by the dolerite dykes that intrude the conglomerate or by heat flow along rejuvenated structures. All facets of the geology and data collection at Redtree were reviewed by Mining Associates. The mineralised systems were visited in the field. The drill data entry systems and database were audited, U3O8 assay and data entry were checked and use of old data validated. No new drilling has been undertaken by Laramide at this time, but this is planned pending Queensland State Government approvals. Rio Tinto had completed approximately 50,000m of drilling to produce what Rio classed as a JORC-compliant inferred resource. Laramide has recently negotiated with Rio Tinto to obtain the full data set and this was used as the basis for the Mining Associates estimates. A new set of three dimensional (3-D) geological interpretations were made by Mining Associates. The project was subdivided into 3 sub-areas of similar mineralisation directions and drilling directions for geological interpretation and resource estimation. Within these, domains of similar geological style were represented by one or more geological wirefames to constrain the final resource block model. New resource estimates have been completed for each of the sub-areas. The resources estimates have been classified by Mining Associates above an economic cut-off grade of 0.02% U3O8, which is considered reasonable at the time of this report for such a shallow and flat lying deposit. Full details of the parameters used for these estimates are contained in the body of this report. The resource estimates are suitable for use in the mine design process for an open pit operation.