Strategy
The Hickson property represents an opportunity that Laurentian feels compelled to pursue, acknowledging that it represents a departure from the current stable of gold projects. The strength of the regional lake sediment anomaly, the lack of prior work, and the potential similarities to the enormous Rossing and Husab deposits are in line with Laurentian's technical strengths in identifying large scale systems and working them thoroughly to rapidly determine their potential.
The intent for this property is to follow up on the encouraging reconnaissance sampling results from 2009 with an airborne radiometric and magnetometer survey, additional ground reconnaissance sampling to further test anomalies, and then vend or spin out the property as a high value asset into a strategic joint venture or a new uranium-focused company, with Laurentian shareholder upside built into the transaction.
Location and Access
The southern edge of Laurentian Goldfields Ltd.'s 100% owned Hickson Property is located approximately 45 kilometres north of La Ronge, Saskatchewan. The Property comprises 31 contiguous blocks, extending approximately 120 km in a southwest-northeast direction and approximately 15 km in width, for a total of approximately 140,000 hectares.
The claims cover a granitoid intrusive complex along the contact between the La Ronge and Rottenstone domains in northern Saskatchewan (
Figure 1).
There is very good access to the Hickson property (
Figure 2). Provincial Highway 2 extends north from Prince Albert to La Ronge. Provincial Highway 102 extends north from La Ronge to service uranium mines in the Wollaston Lake area where it runs approximately 25 km southeast of, and subparallel to, the entire length of property boundary.
In addition, the former winter road to Rottenstone Mine bisects the property, another light road extends northwest along the north shore of the Churchill River almost to the south end of the property, and two new gold mine access roads extend northwest of Highway 102 towards the property.
Exploration Target
Laurentian believes the Hickson property setting is geologically comparable to the world class Rossing (Rio Tinto -- 69%) and Husab (Extract Resources)
Rossing-type uranium deposits of Namibia. The deposits are bulk minable low grade deposits (Rossing
1 -- 371Mlb U (168,000 t U) @ 353 ppm U
3O
8, all categories including historic production; and Husab -- 257 Mlb U
3O
8 (241.0 Mt @ 480 ppm U308) Indicated, 110.3 Mlb U
3O
8 (125.5 Mt @ 400 ppm U
3O
8) Inferred.
The Rossing operation currently contributes approximately 6% of global uranium production (
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf23.html, May 2, 2011), and the development-stage Husab Project is the world's fifth-largest known primary uranium deposit
2.
The Rossing and Husab deposits occur within the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian Damara pan-African mobile belt in southwest Africa and are hosted by high grade sedimentary to migmatitic gneiss (Cuney and Kyser, 2008). The deposits occur within and adjacent to an Alaskite-bearing intrusive dike complex that is spatially associated with regional first and second order fault array. The sediment gneiss host rocks were originally deposited in a passive margin sedimentary package and the deposits occur at the contact between oxidize and reduced stratigraphy.
Rossing-type mineralization forms when uranium-bearing sediments are partially melted to form Alaskite-type intrusions. The deposit grades are further enriched by the precipitation of melt-derived volatiles against adjacent reduced graphitic sediments, and the volatile precipitation process is thought to be extended by carbonate-rich sediments buffering the mineralization process (Cuney and Brisbin, 2010).
Geology
The Hickson property is underlain by the Hickson Lake intrusive complex, a large and complex granitoid intrusion with Alaskite-like phases spatially associated with the regional Paull River shear zone between the La Ronge and Rottenstone domains (
Figure 3). The Hickson Lake intrusive complex occurs within sedimentary gneiss units that were originally passive margin sediments deposited along the flanks of the La Ronge domain into the adjacent Rottenstone basin.
The Rottenstone basin sediments were derived from both the La Ronge highlands to the southeast and the Wollaston domains to the northwest, and are part of the larger Trans-Hudson Orogen, a Paleoproterozoic mobile belt that formed between the Hearne, Amisk, and Superior Archean cratons. The pelitic-psammitic sedimentary gneiss units that host the Hickson Lake intrusive complex contain abundant calc-silicate occurrences that are interpreted to represent metamorphosed limey sediments and are assumed to also contain abundant reduced graphitic and sulphide-bearing sediments related to the North American Central Plain conductivity anomaly.
Laurentian identified this target when gold-generative work in 2009 revealed an extensive uranium anomaly in regional lake sediment and till data that was spatially associated with the Hickson Lake pluton (
Figure 4). A total of 120 rock samples, returning values ranging up to 120 ppm uranium, were collected from peak anomalous areas in a follow up, helicopter-supported reconnaissance exploration program completed in the fall of 2009 (
Figure 5).
No airborne radiometric surveys have been reported over the target area.
Follow-Up
Laurentian is evaluating strategic options for the Hickson property and is committed to remaining focused on a core strategy of gold exploration.
Mr. Mark J Pryor, Pr.Sci.Nat., is Laurentian's "Qualified Person" as defined in the Canadian Securities Administrators National Instrument 43-101 with the ability and authority to verify the authenticity and validity of the data herein.
References
Cuney, M. and Kyser, K.
2008 : Recent and Not-So-Recent Developments in Uranium Deposits and Implications for Exploration, Mineralogical Association of Canada, Short Course Series, Volume 39, Joint Annual Meeting Short Course, GAC-MAC-SEG-SGA, Quebec City, 24-25 May, 2008.
Cuney, M. and Brisbin, D.
2010 : Uranium Geology and Deposits Types, Short Course, SEG-PDAC, PDAC Annual Convention, Toronto, ON, Mar 5-6, 2010
1http://www.namibiauraniuminstitute.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69&Itemid=53 May 6 2010
2http://www.extractresources.com/our-business/husab-uranium-project.html, May 6 2010
