VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Uranium explorer Fission Uranium has connected the westernmost deposits of the Patterson Lake South (PLS) project, host to the Triple R deposit in Northern Saskatchewan.

The explorer on Thursday announced the results from the summer drilling programme for the final eight drill holes on the R840W zone at its PLS property, in Canada's Athabasca Basin region, which advised that drilling had successfully merged the R600W and R840W zones.

The new high-grade, shallow and land-based R840W zone now has a strike length of 465 m and is 495 m west of the R00E zone of the Triple R deposit.

The company added that drilling on the western region of the R840W zone had 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.

“This zone remains open,” advised president, COO and chief geologist Ross McElroy. “The width and strength of the new drill holes at both ends of the trend are impressive and drilling has indicated that the trend is still open. With these results, we remain on target to update our resource estimate during 2017."

Fission also reported that the high-grade R1620E zone to the east had grown and narrowed the gap between it and the Triple R deposit. The R1620E has been proven to be shallow, high-grade and 225 m in strike length. A high-grade core has been traced over 95 m. The zone remains open along strike and at depth. The R1620E zone is located 195 m east and along strike of the R780E zone.

The R1620E zone is shallow at depth, starting at less than 60 m below surface, and has been traced confidently over a strike length of 165 m. Anomalous results on line 1395E suggest this strike length may possibly extend another 60 m or more to the west, Fission stated.

The recently discovered high-grade mineralisation in the R1620E zone has significantly upgraded the prospectivity for further growth of the PLS resource to the east of the Triple R deposit, according to Fission.