Annual report for EL 25406 Fog Bay and EL 26420 Fog Bay East for the year ending 9 April 2009

Abstract

Hapsburg Exploration Pty Ltd was granted EL 25406 Fog Bay on the 10 April 2007, for a period of six years. EL 25406 Fog Bay tenement consisted of 25 sub-blocks and covers an area of 77 km2. On the second anniversary of grant (10 April 2009), EL 25406 was reduced by about half, to 13 sub-blocks covering about 40 km2. On the 23 April 2008, Hapsburg was granted EL 26420 Fog Bay East consisting of 7 sub-blocks totalling about 17 km2. The sub-blocks of EL 26420 occur along the north and east side of EL 25406. These two tenements are located on the north side of the mouth of the Finniss River, about 60 km south-west of Darwin. These tenements are bordered by 5 Mile Beach on the west, Wagait Aboriginal Reserve on the south, the residential areas of Dundee Beach and Fog Bay Road on the north and north-east. The eastern boundary used to be bordered by tenements held by Uranex NL, but these have since been relinquished. The Fog Bay tenements are located in the northern part of the Litchfield Province, which is described as a medium to high grade metamorphic terrane comprising metasedimentary and igneous rocks of Archean(?) to Lower Proterozoic age. This basement block (or province) lies on the west side of the Pine Creek Orogen and extends for several hundred kilometres in a north-south direction, and is up to 60 km wide. The Litchfield Province is also cut by (and in part bound by) several major faults which appear to be part of the Halls Creek Mobile Zone fault system. The Litchfield Province contains a centrally located syn-orogenic granitoid of presumed Lower Proterozoic age. This granitoid is enveloped by a suite of recrystallised carbonate rocks, calc-silicate rocks, amphibolite, biotite quartzofeldspathic gneiss, graphitic schist/gneiss, quartzite, sideritic iron formation and ultramafic rocks. This suite of rocks forms the Sweets Unit of the Welltree Metamorphics, and corresponds with pronounced aeromagnetic and radiometric anomalies. This unit has been correlated (by some) with the Cahill Formation of the East Alligator Rivers Uranium Field (the Cahill Formation is host to the Jabiluka, Koongarra, Nabarlek and Ranger Uranium Province). Within Hapsburg's tenements, the main rock exposure is a linear outcrop of mildly metamorphosed ferruginous sandstone and pebbly sandstone which is correlated with the Depot Creek Sandstone which forms the Tolmer Plateau. This ridge is described as a tight syncline and is believed to be fault bound on both the east and west sides. Another prominent north-south ridge in the south central part of the tenement consists of faulted, quartz veined and silicified sandstone (sheared). This represents a major fault structure cutting what could be Depot Creek Sandstone or sheared and veined gneiss. Cretaceous age lateritic sandstone (Bathurst Island Formation) covers the northern and eastern parts of the tenements to a depth of up to 60m. A geology map of the Fog Bay area (by Idemitsu) shows possible Burrell Creek Formation occurring to the east of the Depot Creek Sandstone. Then further to the east is a north to north-east trending unconformity that separates the Burrell Creek Formation from the Port Patterson sequence. To the west of the Depot Creek Formation, the basement rock is interpreted to be the Wagait Granite (however Idemitsu had no drilling in this area). The NTGS geology of the area shows Wagait Granite occurring on both sides (E & W) of the Depot Creek Sandstone in the south part of Hapsburg's tenement. This is based on two NTGS stratigraphic drill holes in the south part of Hapsburg's tenement. In contrast, the NTGS shows the Depot Creek Sandstone in the northern part of Hapsburg's tenement to be bracketed by Palaeoproterozoic gneissic rocks. This is based on four NTGS stratigraphic drill holes within or adjacent to the northern part of Hapsburg's tenement. Only minor surface work has been done directly on Hapsburg's tenements (EL 25406 and EL 26420). However, significant exploration for uranium and base metals was done about 15 to 25 km to the east of Hapsburg's tenements; without success. The Fog Bay area has seen past exploration for a diverse range of commodities. In the 1960s Placer Limited explored for mineral sands in the beach deposits, without success. Others (including BHP) have explored for base metals (Pb & Zn) in the Proterozoic basement rocks, especially to the east of Hapsburg's tenements. This work showed only weak Pb-Zn values in fault structures largely cutting carbonate units. Various companies such as Greenbushes have explored pegmatite bodies for tin and tantalum, with several small operators having exploited small deposits. To the east of Hapsburg's Fog Bay tenements, there has been substantial uranium exploration conducted by Esso Australia Limited, AOG Minerals Limited in joint venture with Union Oil Development Corporation, and the Urangesellschaft - Idemitsu Joint Venture. Virtually all airborne radiometric anomalies were investigated without any significant uranium responses being found. Much effort was expended on evaluating the stratigraphy in this area, in an effort to show it to be equivalent to the Cahill Formation of the East Alligator Rivers Uranium Field. Despite the apparent success of proving stratigraphic equivalence, the surface surveys and drilling still failed to locate any uranium. A government regional geophysical survey had previously been flown in a north-south direction generally parallel to stratigraphy. This limits the full magnetic response, so Hapsburg commissioned a new aeromagnetic survey to be flown with east-west flight lines, 100m spaced lines and a sensor height of 50m. Universal Tracking Systems (UTS) of Perth was awarded the contract, and the survey of 2,210 line kilometres was flown in late December 2007. This resulted in the selection of four areas (A to D) for follow-up ground magnetic surveys and geological reconnaissance. During August 2008, a program of ground magnetics and reconnaissance rock chip sampling was undertaken at Hapsburg's Fog Bay tenements. The objective of the ground magnetic survey was to accurately locate the magnetic units (A-D) that had been defined by an airborne magnetic survey in December of 2007, and hence allow the targeting of drill holes to test the edges of these magnetic units. Terra Search Pty Ltd was commissioned to conduct the ground magnetic survey with the use of GEM Systems (GSM-19) Overhauser Magnetometer (walking magnetometer & GPS). Unfortunately Area A was found to lie entirely within a large swamp, and parts of the other areas also had some edges extending into grass or paper bark swamps. Terra Search completed the data compilation and summary report by October 2008. A geophysicist will be contracted to examine the data and help select drill sites to test the contacts of the magnetic units. Eight rock chip samples were collected from outcrops of sheared and altered (sericite-quartz) sandstone (Depot Creek Sandstone?). All samples were analysed by ALS in Alice Springs, for a wide range of elements; none of which showed any significant anomalies. The same eight samples were sent for petrographic examination by Richard England in Perth, who described all samples as meta-sandstone or quartz greywacke.