Annual report EL 26977, 23 July 2010 to 22 July 2011

Abstract

The area of interest occurs within and adjacent to the boundary of the Georgina Basin and the new titleholders consider the licence area to be favourable for the discovery of phosphate deposits of a similar nature to that found to the east of this locality. The Arthur Creek Formation is the target rock unit in this locality as it represents the calcareous unit deposited in the Cambrian. This Formation has a lower anaerobic limestone and an upper aerobic limestone which represents near shore conditions. This aerobic limestone unit is fossiliferous with phosphatic occurrences throughout the region. Phosphate has been found at the base of the aerobic unit and this is our target on this licence. Field work completed in Year 2 was a number of traverses through the licence area based around access afforded by the NT railway line and access tracks. These were generally in good order due to the work done to repair line damage during the wet season and the installation of the broadband optical fibre line which was laid along the rail corridor. The work in the wet season caused major damage to the line access points but this was repaired after the wet season by the rail operators and improved by the contractors installing the optical fibre line to Darwin. Access was also afforded along the boundary fence between Stirling and Mt Skinner Stations. Surprisingly the boundary fence lines between stations have generally been the ones that have had the least maintenance. Traversing the areas to the east of the north-south soil lines was done on foot as the vegetation was impenetrable to vehicles. Rock sampling of secondary calcrete outcrops for uranium was also undertaken as part of our traverses through the licence. No radioactive rock specimens were found.