Okapi Resources Ltd (ASX:OKR) has kicked off an extensive maiden field exploration program at the Newnham Lake and Perch Uranium projects in the Athabasca Basin of Canada.
The exploration program aims to prioritise drill targets for testing in the Athabasca Basin during winter 2023.
The program will consist of prospecting, outcrop and boulder sampling with potential soil and vegetation sampling to help identify favourable structural scenarios suitable for hosting uranium mineralisation.
“Maiden field exploration”
Okapi managing director Andrew Ferrier said: “We are excited about our maiden field exploration program in the Athabasca Basin.
“Our properties at Newnham Lake and Perch remain our highest priority, with historical drilling showing anomalous radioactivity within multiple drillholes, favourable lithologies and untested basement hosted potential at a relatively shallow depth.
“The field program is mainly helicopter supported and plenty of pre-planning work was required to allow us to commence our exploration program.
“I thank our team and consultants in getting everything organised on time and schedule.”
Exploration program
Okapi’s initial phase of the exploration program involves the recently completed satellite image data analysis over the entire Newnham Lake and Perch projects.
The company also completed an extensive data review and summary of all the historical exploration work carried out on the two projects.
The analysis of satellite image data included synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data, multispectral Sentinel and Aster data.
The data collected was processed, analysed, and interpreted and has generated several target areas that concentrate across east-west structural corridors, and the intersection of those with north-south and northeast-southwest trending faults.
Surface exploration investigations have now begun, focusing on the relatively under-explored areas that make up the north-eastern priority 1 and priority 2 areas at Newnham Lake, and the areas north of the unconformity contact in exposed Archean rocks at Perch.
These areas have been identified as Archean Basement rocks at, or near, the surface that exhibit alteration and oxidation characteristics consistent with the potential to host uranium mineralisation.
Newnham Lake - Prospecting Areas (left), Field work underway at Newnham Lake (right).
Athabasca uranium projects
The Athabasca uranium projects include 75 granted mineral claims covering over 55,000 hectares.
Importantly, all the projects are situated along the margin of the Athabasca Basin or in the Carswell Impact Structure.
At this location, the depth to the unconformity is relatively shallow, being 300 metres or less and typically closer to 100 metres, making them ideal for targeting shallow high-grade unconformity-related uranium deposits.