Kings Valley Claims, Nevada, USA
Western Uranium acquired the Kings Valley property in January 2005. Recognizing the regional exploration potential the property holds to host uranium and potentially gold or molybdenum mineralization the Company has been aggressively exploring the large land position of nearly 80,000 acres over the past several years. After evaluation consisting of geophysics, structural interpretation, geologic mapping and sampling, the Company decreased the land position by 2154 claims in 2009. The Company currently holds in total 2033 claims covering over 40,000 acres within the McDermitt Caldera. During the past five years the Company has conducted various phases of exploration including undertaking large geochemical surveys, airborne and ground geophysical surveys, geologic mapping, large regional structural analyses, and various drill campaigns.
AMEC Mining and Metals, Inc. prepared a NI 43-101 compliant resource estimation based on historical drill information including drilling undertaken by the Company during 2006 and 2007. A NI 43-101 compliant inferred resource has been calculated that indicates 4.8 million pounds of uranium in approximately 3 million tonnes at a cutoff of 0.035% U3O8 for the north zone and 0.05% U3O8 for the south and Moonlight zones are present.
Permitting is in progress to allow for an expanded drill program on the western margin of the caldera in the zones of known mineralization. Further drilling in the areas of known mineralization may expand the inferred resource and it is expected that with additional work and drilling, these resources could be upgraded to the Indicated category with additional information regarding the mineral processing and mining methodology. Future exploration is targeted at expanding the known resources in the North, South, and Moonlight Mine areas and locating additional targets in the claim block that may host uranium or other types of mineral deposits Exploration in 2010 will include an extensive Induced Polarization (IP) survey to target uranium mineralization beneath the moat sediments within the Caldera to the east of the known resource areas. Drilling is planned in the summer.
Geologic Discussion
Exploration and drilling results indicate that the mineral and alteration assemblage found at three areas of known mineralization, the North Zone, South Zone and Moonlight Mine consists of at least two mineralizing events, one event appears to include deposition of gold, silver, arsenic, antimony, copper, lead and zinc and the other system appears to control deposition of uranium, molybdenum, silver and mercury. Geologic and structural mapping along the western escarpment of the caldera has defined a 5 kilometer long, north- to northeast-trending structural corridor extending from the Moonlight Mine in the south past the North Zone.
The Company's regional exploration programs have successfully identified additional areas within the caldera exhibiting potential for containing additional uranium, gold, silver, lithium and possibly molybdenum mineralization. Regional exploration has identified several large geochemical and geophysical anomalies in areas peripheral to previously identified zones of drill defined uranium mineralization. These anomalies are in areas with similar geology to other known uranium deposits within the McDermitt Caldera.
The Company believes that the geologic setting of the McDermitt Caldera is similar to that of the Streltsovka Caldera in Transbaikalia, Russia which hosts reported uranium resources of greater than 600 million pounds U3O8 distributed in 20 deposits. Although the geologic ages of the calderas differ, the internal rock types, complex structural components, the geologic environment, and nearly identical geographical dimensions are analogous.
Geologic work to date has identified a large area of approximately 16 kilometers in strike length and 3 kilometers in width covering prospective regional targets from south to north referred to as JJ, Horse Canyon, Bull Basin, Old Man Springs, and Albisu. Several of these targets have been tested in previous drilling programs and may warrant additional testing. The data gathered during these programs is used in guiding future exploration activities. The Company plans on drill testing the Horse Canyon target during 2010.
The Horse Canyon target is located to the east of KV North. A strong magnetic high has been identified with dimensions of some 3200 meters x 800 meters that corresponds to a uranium soil anomaly defined by Chevron Resources that was never drill tested during their tenure on the project.
Albisu is an area that exhibits paleo-hot springs style surface alteration and lies at the northern end of the dominant north-south structural trend that seems to focus much of the uranium or gold mineralization along the western edge and side of the caldera.
The drilling at Albisu intercepted geochemically anomalous and intensely altered volcanic rocks in every drill hole. Low grade, wide intercepts of gold with scattered narrower zones of higher grade was encountered in many of the holes. The gold occurs in hydrothermally altered brecciated volcanic rocks that exhibit strong argillization, silicification and sulphide veining characteristic of high level epithermal systems. The large halo of widespread and continuous lower grade gold along with geochemically elevated intervals of silver, arsenic, cobalt, mercury and molybdenum within hydrothermally altered and brecciated volcanic rocks indicates this has been an active and dynamic system. Due to the amount of widespread alteration and geochemically elevated levels of gold and various pathfinder elements the Company believes that this area deserves further evaluation and is seeking a to lease or joint venture this area to another group to undertake additional exploration.
In summary, there is a dominant north-south corridor of mineralization and alteration that strikes 24 kilometres along the western rim of the McDermitt Caldera. The southern part of the trend is defined by the known zones of uranium mineralization. The north end as defined as Albisu appears to be a gold enriched portion of the system. Along this entire trend scattered old prospect pits and random historic drill holes tend to have elevated geochemical signatures of metals that may occur proximal to large mineral systems. Many of the holes are geochemically elevated significantly above background concentrations in arsenic, mercury, and silver along with scattered zones of elevated gold and molybdenum. All of these elements when examined on a regional scale suggest that an extremely large, active, multi-element, metalliferrous system has been active in the caldera.
