Project Summary

The Cleve Project is located in an environment prospective for unconformity-related uranium mineralisation, similar to that found in the well known East  Alligator River region of the Northern Territory. In the overlying Tertiary cover sequence there is also potential for uranium occurrences of ‘redox front’ or ‘roll front’ style, as a result of uranium eroded from basement occurrences entering the younger drainage system.

The main Project tenement block is located adjacent to Cleve township, and is strategically positioned in an area where there was considerable early uranium exploration activity from the late 1960s through to the early 1980s.  The other two much smaller sub-blocks are located some 10 to 20 km to the south over the Driver River channel, a modern drainage feature that overlies older more extensive Tertiary palaeodrainage and basinal sediments also prospective for uranium.

The known occurrences of uranium mineralisation in the Proterozoic basement of the Cleve district are mainly hosted by older Hutchison Group metasediments, consisting of a folded sequence of quartzites, banded iron formation (BIF), marbles, calc-silicates and schists, in places strongly graphitic. This sequence is truncated by an unconformity at the base of mapped outliers of younger Mesoproterozoic Blue Range Beds, an overlying clastic sequence correlated with the Corunna Conglomerate at the base of the Gawler Range Volcanics. These mapped outliers of Blue Range Beds, including the portion within EL 3834, are inferred to be remnants of much more extensive Mesoproterozoic sediment cover that was subsequently removed by erosion.

It is inferred from previous exploration that the uranium and base metal occurrences in this district are controlled by the interaction of favourable Hutchison Group stratigraphy (containing graphite) with a set of north west-south east trending faults and shears belonging to the Cleve Fault zone. This faulting and shearing, and associated ferruginous alteration with anomalous uranium extends up into the overlying Blue Range Beds. This evidence that the mineralising event post-dates the unconformity is consistent with the unconformity-related uranium deposit model as applied to this environment.

Early airborne radiometric surveys show extensive uranium and thorium anomalism over the better exposed Hutchison Group terrain to the north east of the main Cleve Fault Zone. To the south west the basement is largely obscured by shallow cover, and deeper Tertiary cover further south, that has rendered previous airborne radiometric surveying ineffective. This means that much of the project area has not been effectively explored for uranium-base metal occurrences similar to those of the surrounding district.

In early 2008, the company was successful in obtaining PACE funding support from the SA Government to assist the testing of structurally defined targets under shallow cover to the south west of the Cleve Fault zone.