VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Junior explorer Fission Uranium has announced the discovery of a new mineralised zone 660 m west of the existing R840W zone, highlighting the potential to extend the Patterson Lake South (PLS) mineralised trend, in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca basin, well beyond the current 2.63 km.

The Kelowna-based company on Monday reported results from five holes drilled in the R1620E zone, three drilled in the R840W zone and two regional holes drilled 660 m west of the R840W zone, towards the high-grade boulder field. All nine holes were mineralised, with four returning high-grade intervals.

Regional drilling (hole PLS17-514, line 1665W) had hit mineralisation with a 1 m anomalous interval (117.5 m to 118.5 m), with a peak of 3 200 counts per second (cps), the measurement of ionising radiation expressed as being a rate of counts per unit time, over 0.5 m.

The drilling also successfully expanded the R840W land-based, shallow and high-grade zone, with three holes in the R840W zone returning strong results and high-grade intervals, the company said.

The drilling also expanded the R1620E shallow and high-grade zone, with five holes on R1620E returning wide mineralisation. These include Hole PLS17-517 (line 765W), with 52.5 m mineralisation (between 104 m to 156.5 m), including 6.82 m of total composite >10 000 cps; Hole PLS17-521 (line 795W) which returned 36 m mineralisation in a 49.5 m section (between 128 m to 177.5 m), including 4.03 m of total composite >10 000 cps; and Hole PLS17-515 (line 765W), which returned 41 m mineralisation in a 49.5 m section (between 141.5 m to 191 m), including 3.86 m of total composite >10 000 cps.

Fission explained that drilling in the R840W and R1620E zones seeks to grow these newly discovered shallow, high-grade mineralised areas at the west and east end of the 2.63 km mineralised trend, for possible inclusion in a future resource estimate update.

"This is a strong start to our 63-hole winter programme. We've expanded the near-surface, high-grade zones at each end of our 2.63 km mineralised trend, which is of key importance as we seek to include these in a future resource estimate, planned for later this year. We've also had an exciting hit with our regional drilling, hitting mineralisation on a 660 m step-out from the R840W zone. We consider this to be a new area of mineralisation and we will be targeting it for aggressive follow-up drilling,” Fission president, COO and chief geologist Ross McElroy stated.

Fission had recently expanded its winter drill programme to include a further 29 new drill holes, for a total of 63 holes (19 020 m). PLS hosts the Triple R – the only major deposit in the basin with a high-grade core starting at 50 m from surface, as well as two other, similarly shallow and high-grade zones.

Most of the additional holes will focus on high-priority regional exploration targets with the objective of making a new, near-surface, high-grade discovery at PLS, the company advised.