Annual report on EL 25693 Deep Well

Abstract

The Deep Well tenement, EL 25693, is located about thirty kilometres northeast of Alice Springs on Bond Springs Station. It is readily accessible from the town of Alice Springs via the sealed Stuart Highway and unsealed station tracks. The geology of the tenement is mostly of Arunta Block biotite gneiss, with lesser occurrences of ultramafic rocks in the southeast of the tenement and Quaternary sediments and Cainozoic laterites in the northwest. Many radiometric anomalies were apparent on airborne data throughout the biotite gneisses on the tenement, but one particularly intense area was selected for ground truthing. A lesser anomaly within alluvium was also chosen for checking, as it was considered a possible calcrete uranium accumulation. The southern sampling area, of an radiometric anomaly biotite gneiss, had five samples taken. These were styled DW01 though DW05, and ICP-MS analysis returned uranium values in the range of 1.14ppm up to 8.93ppm. Thorium assays were between 17.2ppm and up to 194ppm and appear to account for the anomalism. The northern sampling area was sampled with DW08, DW10 and DW11. This was in an area of lateritic duricrust, rather than calcrete as had been surmised from its proximity to a drainage system. It had uranium assays in the range of 0.88ppm up to 1.89ppm. Thorium assays ranged from 19.3ppm up to 51.1ppm and would appear again to account for the anomaly. Later acquisition of ASTER data was used to review host lithology, alteration and soil units but does not indicate any substantial alteration or mineralisation systems.