Aileron Project EL 26374 Pine Hill Partial relinquishment report for the period ending 15 April 2010

Abstract

NuPower carried out an airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey in 2008 over the area including the relinquished blocks as part of a larger survey of NuPower's tenements in the Aileron region. The survey was designed to explore for buried palaeochannels within the Cainozoic sedimentary package as potential hosts for secondary uranium. A total of 10.2 line kilometres was flown here at 1km line spacings at a nominal terrain clearance of 120m over the areas relinquished. Concurrently, water from station stock water bores in the vicinity of Pine Hill was sampled and assayed for a suite of major and trace elements the results of which are expected to assist with targeting potential sites of uranium accumulation within the palaeochannel systems. AEM survey results indicated that the technique was very successful; revealing that the Tertiary palaeodrainage system is far more extensive and better developed than previously thought. The Ti-Tree Basin infills a deep structural feature developed in two NW-SE trending grabens immediately to the north of the Ti-Tree Fault, where EL 26374 is located. NuPower also contributed to the NTGS Central Australia Gravity Survey over the Central Arunta region to acquire higher quality data for regional basement interpretation that confirmed the crustal significance of the Ti-Tree Fault. There were no infill stations on Pine Hill. There was no on-ground exploration work during Year 2. Although the AEM survey showed that there is a thick sequence of Cainozoic sediments of the Ti Tree Basin with good potential for the preservation of reduced sediments and therefore for secondary sandstone hosted uranium mineralisation beneath most of EL 26374, the basement is shallow under part of the area, where the potential for such sediments is less, and three sub-blocks were selected here for relinquishment.