VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Explorer Fission Uranium has found uranium pathfinder elements and strong radioactivity in two new drill holes completed to the west of the western-most deposit at the Patterson Lake South (PLS) project, in Canada’s Athabasca basin.

The Kelowna, British Columbia-based junior on Wednesday announced the results of the final 11 exploration drill holes from its summer campaign comprising seven core holes and four reverse circulation (RC) holes at its PLS property, which is host to the Triple R deposit, which the company says is the only major, high-grade deposit in the region that is potentially openpittable.

Fission reported that exploration hole PLS16-490 (1665W) returned anomalous pathfinder geochemistry including uranium (up to 115 ppm) and boron up to 115 ppm and 775 ppm, respectively, 600 m west on strike from the R840W zone.

Further, step out drilling 30 m west of the R840W zone, RC hole PLCRC16-010 encountered anomalous radioactivity in rock chips, corresponding to a peak of 9 308 counts per second (cps) in a down-hole gamma probe.

This looks quite similar to Fission’s September 2013 announcement in which it reported that it had found a fourth mineralised zone at PLS, with total composite scintillometer readings that were off the scale, or greater than 9 999 cps. The zone became known as R945E and later merged with other zones to form the high-grade Triple R zone.

Probing deeper below the R780E zone, exploration hole PLS16-503 intersected anomalous radioactivity representing the deepest mineralisation on the Triple R zone to date and potentially opening up an entirely new area, Fission said.

The company considers all three discoveries a high priority for follow up.

“The discovery of uranium pathfinder elements in this area highlights the strong potential for mineralisation as we push towards the high-grade boulder field, approximately 2.5 km west of our 2.63 km mineralised trend. We are also very pleased with the successful, high-grade step-out, 30 m west of the R840W zone, which confirms that the zone is wide open to the west.

“It is important to mention the discovery of mineralisation at depth beneath the Triple R deposit. This is a virtually uncharted area for us and illustrates the potential to expand the Triple R resource at depth. All three areas warrant aggressive follow up in the next drill programme," president, COO and chief geologist Ross McElroy stated.

Recent drilling on the western region of the R840W zone had already expanded mineralisation a further 60 m to the west from the previous winter drilling campaign – increasing the strike length of the mineralised Patterson Lake trend at PLS to 2.63 km – the largest mineralised trend in the Athabasca basin region.

Fission considers it still early days at PLS and is hopeful of eventually connecting all lateral mineralised zones with the Triple R deposit to form one massive mineralised trend. The PLS property contains numerous further electromagnetic conductors and radioactive intersections that are yet to be followed up on.