Highlights
Further Significant Uranium Mineralisation discovered in First Drill Hole at the “Arrow” Prospect, Rook I west area.
Two sections of off-scale scintillometer counts (total 0.5meters >10,000 cps).
Multiple structural zones containing uranium mineralisation occur to at least 584 m downhole depth.
NexGen Energy Ltd. (TSX-V: NXE) (“NexGen” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce the discovery of further new zones of uranium mineralisation within the first hole in the Arrow prospect, Rook 1 project in the SW Athabasca Basin.
The first hole at Arrow, RK-14-21, was completed at 663.0 m on Fri 21 February 2014 (Fig 1 & 2). In addition to the 26.2m upper sheared breccia zone from 204.8-231.0 m downhole containing visible pitchblende reported previously, further mineralised zones have been observed at 318.5-319.1 m, 517.9-544.5 m (Fig 3), and 580.0-584.0 m (Fig 4).
Andrew Browne, NexGen’s Vice-President, Exploration and Development, commented “This first hole at the Arrow prospect is very encouraging. The dominant mineralisation control appears to be entirely structural, as targeted. The number and widths of structural zones, the depth of mineralisation intersected, and the multiple occurrence of apparently high-grade off-scale zones are all highly encouraging features for future drilling.”
Leigh Curyer, NexGen’s CEO commented, “RK-14-21 just kept getting better. It is highly encouraging. Andrew and the technical team deserve credit for this result on the very first hole. Both rigs are now focused purely on Arrow until additional rigs can be sought to drill the other 11 western located Rook I target areas. We have a lot more drilling to do. As stated last week, this result indicates the potential of this south-western section of the Athabasca Basin in becoming a new prolific uranium district.”
The hole has been probed radiometrically, using a Mt Sopris 2PGA-1000 total count natural gamma scintillometer probe (Fig 4). These significant radioactive zones have been measured using a hand-held Exploranium GR-110 total count scintillometer (Table 1). Currently, NexGen defines “significant” as a minimum of 5cm >500 cps (counts per second). All radiometric anomalous zones in core have been scanned with an Exploranium GR-135 spectrometer, and this has confirmed that all radiometric activity is due to uranium (with minimal or no thorium input).
The intensity of the uranium-mineralised zones at 519 m and 544 m is much higher than that of the initial zone reported at 204.8-231.0m (Figs 2 and 3). All mineralised zones have been sampled for chemical analysis.
The host lithology throughout most of the hole comprises variably chloritised medium/coarse-grained quartz-garnet-feldspar gneiss, with localized graphitic zones, shearing, brecciation, minor silicification, local dravite veins, and clay alteration.
Hole RK-14-25 has commenced drilling from the same collar as hole -21, but at a shallower angle. Hole RK-14-24 has commenced drilling, located 30m along strike from hole -21 to the NE