Aileron Project EL 24741 Woodforde Annual report for period ending 20 April 2009

Abstract

Woodforde (EL 24741) was granted on 21 April 2006 and transferred to NuPower Resources Ltd on 14 March 2007 as a result of the demerger of Arafura's uranium assets into the newly formed company focussed on uranium. NuPower carried out an airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey in June-July 2007 over most of the area 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. Concurrently, water from station stock water bores 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 and indicating that the Ti-Tree Basin infills a deep structural feature developed in two NW-SE trending grabens immediately to the northeast of the Ti-Tree Fault. Several major palaeochannels flow into the basin from the southwest, north and east. NuPower also contributed to the NTGS Central Australia Gravity Survey over the Central Arunta region in the Woodforde region to acquire higher quality data for regional basement interpretation that confirmed the crustal significance of the Ti-Tree Fault. Eight water samples from seven station bores were reassayed for additional elements and a further 36 water samples were taken from NUP drill holes. Interpretation of the water geochemistry is in progress. Twelve, broadly spaced, reconnaissance drill holes were completed on Woodforde during 2008 for a total of 2,919m, from which 1459 samples were collected, of which 102 were sent for chemical assay. The drilling showed that the Tertiary palaeodrainage system on Woodforde is very well developed, reaching thicknesses in excess of 320m and NuPower has been able to establish a preliminary stratigraphic model for the Tertiary Ti-Tree Basin. One drill hole (WF004) intersected uranium mineralisation exceeding 0.01% eU3O8 and indications of anomalous gamma were detected in another six holes. Chemical assays of drill hole cuttings were very disappointing but not unexpected in view of the drilling and sampling methods employed. Composite samples from two drill holes downstream from the Nolan's Bore deposit showed no evidence of secondary accumulations of uranium, thorium or rare earth elements. Tertiary sediments were intersected in all holes, thereby validating the airborne EM data and the mineralisation intersected by reconnaissance drilling is hosted by a flat-lying, regionally widespread stratigraphic horizon that appears to occur throughout the Ti-Tree Basin. This work validated NuPower's exploration model and demonstrated that all the necessary elements for the formation of a sizeable sandstone hosted secondary uranium deposit occur on the Woodforde tenement. Stream sediment samples from the Woodforde River-Kerosene Creek area down stream from the Nolan's Bore deposit were assayed to determine the geochemical signature of the mineralisation but contained no elevated values suggesting that this type of deposit lies undetectable by stream sediment geochemistry at 10-15 km down stream from source. Reconnaissance rock chip sampling of four isolated U-Th radiometric anomalies associated with small bodies of Boothby Orthogneiss and Aileron Metamorphics showed no significant anomalies, but that Ce, Nb, P and Rb are apparently elevated and may be typical of the Boothby Orthogneiss. Rock chip, stream sediment and soil samples from a prominent U-Th radiometric anomaly in the NW extremity of the tenement 5 km southeast of the Mt Finniss area where there is a recorded occurrence of Ce-Th-U-Nd-La mineralisation are anomalous in Ce, Hf, La, Nb, Th, Sn and Ta. These results are considered sufficiently important for further reconnaissance work here.