Northwest Athabasca Joint Venture
| Ownership: | Forum 39.25%; NexGen 28.25%; Cameco 20%: Orano 12.5% |
| Stage: | Historical resource; numerous showings, highly prospective for finding additional high-grade mineralization. Drill and fuel is on site, waiting for market conditions to improve. |
| Size: | 10,161 HA, and includes the Maurice Bay deposit |
| Location & Infrastructure |
The Maurice Bay area of Lake Athabasca is located immediately east of the Alberta-Saskatchewan provincial boundary, and is 75 km west of Uranium City. It is accessible by float or ski-equipped aircraft, barge or boat from Lake Athabasca, and by winter road across the ice on Lake Athabasca. |
| Regional Significance | The project has been explored since 1970 with the discovery of numerous radioactive boulder trains. One of the largest trains was followed to its source leading to the discovery of the Maurice Bay deposit in 1976. Numerous shallow targets for basement and sandstone-hosted unconformity style mineralization are under-explored or untested, which further demonstrates a high potential for discovering high-grade deposits. |
| Proximity to significant deposits |
Property includes the Includes the Maurice Bay deposit, which was discovered in 1976. It contains a historical resource estimate of 1.5 million pounds grading 0.6% U3O8 to a depth of 50 m*. (Saskatchewan Industry and Resources, Miscellaneous Report 2003-7).
*The Maurice Bay historical resource estimate was completed prior to the implementation of National Instrument 43-101. Given the extensive exploration work completed by experienced mineral resource companies, and the quality of the historical work completed, the Company believes the historical estimate to be relevant and reliable. However, a qualified person has not completed sufficient work to verify and classify the historical estimate as a current mineral resource, and the Company is not treating the historical estimate as a current mineral resource. It should be noted that mineral resources, which are not mineral reserves, do not have demonstrated economic viability. |
Outlook:
- Numerous untested gravity and structural targets with EM conductors are present, along with several radioactive boulder trains with no identified source. The shallow sandstone cover and existing widespread mineralization continue to make this a highly prospective project.
Historical Work
- From 2003 to 2007, Cameco conducted a series of airborne and ground geophysical surveys, culminating in a 10-hole diamond drill program in 2008
- Forum Energy Metals became the operator of the project in 2011 and conducted a ground gravity survey on the central part of the project.
- Diamond drill programs were completed during the period 2012-15, which resulted in new basement-hosted uranium discoveries named Opie, Barney and Otis West. An intersection of 0.152% U3O8 over 39.5 m was noted in NWA-63 at a downhole depth from 130.5 to 170m.
- In 2017 a soil/till sampling program to investigate potential boron anomalies down-ice of the gravity targets for prioritizing new targets for future drilling was completed. The basement-hosted mineralized zones of Otis, Barney and Opie all had strong boron signatures in the sandstones overlying the showings. Project is currently on hold.
Maps & Figures
Figure 1 Maurice Bay Project: Targets outlined by geophysical work- The blue colours represent gravity lows, the reds are gravity highs. There are numerous untested gravity lows on the project.
Figure 2 Soil Sample Results on NWA Project: The contours are the gravity survey with the orange fill being the anomalously low areas. Results extend onto Forum’s adjoining Maurice Point Project.
Photo 1: Off-scale mineralization from basement rocks drilled by Forum in one of the basement-hosted high-grade zones (Zone 1A) on the Northwest Athabasca project. This sample returned 2.85% U3O8 over 50cm.
Presentations
View the Northwest Athabasca presentation
