West Newcastle Range/Teddy Mountain/Ardmore East

Highlights: 

• Significantly expands CUR’s footprint in Queensland with all three Projects located in proximity to CUR’s existing portfolio of owned and optioned assets, including the Ben Lomond, Georgetown, Milo and Gidyea Creek projects (Figure 1). 
• Known uranium prospects and untested exploration upside across all three Projects. 
• Both West Newcastle Range and Teddy Mountain have potential for the discovery of high grade, near surface Uranium mineralization with historic results including: 
  • 12 metres grading 0.57% U3O8 from 23 metres and 10 metres grading 0.59% U3O8 from 42 metres at West Newcastle Range 
  • 10 m at 0.63% U3O8 including 2 m @ 1.8% U3O8 from 12 m at Teddy Mountain. 
• Ardmore East covers exploration stage prospects with uranium and vanadium mineralization, and anomalous REE signature.

The West Newcastle Range project is an advanced stage exploration project located five kilometres northeast of Georgetown and approximately 40 kilometres southeast of the Georgetown uranium project. The West Newcastle Range exploration licence application consists of 78 sub-blocks covering a total area of 25,500 hectares (255 km2). Extensive uranium exploration has been carried out between 1973 and 1983, including airborne and ground based radiometrics, VLF-EM, rockchip and stream geochemical sampling, geological mapping and over 36,000 metres drilled over various uranium prospects. In today’s dollar terms, this level of inground exploration is estimated to cost in excess of CAD$20 million.

The West Newcastle Range Project comprises five main uranium prospects. The Two Gee, Gecko, Trident, and Sybnac Prospects form an approximately 5 km long structurally controlled trend on the northeast edge of an interpreted caldera margin. The Quartz Blow prospect is part of an additional 5 km long northeast oriented trend. Multiple other prospects occur on the project, with uranium intersected in drilling and encountered in surface samples.

Significant historic drill intersections are shown in Table 1 below, including 12.0 m @ 5,736 ppm U3O8 from 23.0 m and 10.0 m @ 5,872 ppm U3O8 from 42.0 m Trident, and 5.2 m @ 4,588 ppm U3O8 from 37.1 m.
 

Table 1: West Newcastle Range drill composites with >7500 U3O8 ppm x meters calculated at a 150 ppm U3O8 cut off and a maximum of 2 m waste for Phillips Well (total 32 drillholes), Trident (total 49 drillholes), Two G (total 133 drillholes).

Untested outcropping mineralization is evident in the historic geophysical and geochemical datasets and the caldera volcano-sedimentary infill sequence is expected to be a prime target for large-scale, high-grade concealed mineralization as observed elsewhere in the world. World-class examples of caldera related volcanic Uranium deposits include the Streltsovsk district in Russia comprising >600 Mlbs U3O81 and the Dornod district in Mongolia >100 Mlbs U3O82. Other examples include the Xiangshan district (China), the Macusani district (Peru), the Kurišková and Novoveská Huta deposits (Slovakia) and the deposits of the McDermitt caldera (USA). Often the high-grade uranium mineralization within caldera systems is concealed and manifests a lower grade structurally hosted mineralization at surface.

The Teddy Mountain Project is located approximately 230 kilometres west of Townsville and 180 kilometres west of the Ben Lomond Uranium-Molybdenum project (Figure 1) that contains historic mineral resources. Teddy Mountain comprises 100 sub-blocks covering a total area of 32,500 hectares (325 km2). Precious metal, base metal and uranium exploration activities were carried out from 1969 to 1983 and from 2008 to 2017. The Teddy Mountain Project is underexplored for uranium with exploration to date limited to 30 shallow drill holes totaling approximately 3,000 metres drilled mostly during the late 1970’s early 1980’s with 12 holes in 2009. Many historic drill holes failed to reach target depths due to drilling issues, and both the surface defined, and drill-intercepted mineralization remains open (Figure 2).

Selected drilling intercepts calculated using a 300 ppm U3O8 cut off and 1 m maximum internal dilution include:

• TED-A1:  10.0 m @ 6,266 ppm U3O8 inc. 2.0 m @ 1.8% U3O8 from 12.0 m
• CLEP-9:  5.0 m @ 442 ppm U3O8 from 43.0 m
• PWRC09:  13.0 m @ 187 ppm U3O8nc. 6.0 m @303 ppm U3O8 from 6.0 m

The highest priority uranium prospects are the Teddy Group, comprising Pamplemousse, Hat 10, Teddy North, Teddy Mount, Hat 1&2 prospects and the Big Hoy North & South prospects. All six prospects of the Teddy Group are aligned along a northeast trending structural corridor splaying off the east-northeast trending Teddy Mount Fault a major crustal scale structure. Initial exploration in the late 1970’s by Minatome following up airborne gamma radiometric anomalies defined a 171 m dozer cut bench with visible uranium mineralization with fourteen rock chip grab samples were collected, assaying up to 1.1% U3O8. Two historical specimen samples from surface mineralization at the Teddy North prospect of nodules of boltwoodite contained 45.4% U3O8 and 79.0% U3O8 respectively.

Untested outcropping mineralization is evident in the historic geophysical and geochemical datasets, drilling has not closed off mineralization at depth. Modern systematic exploration has been limited to known zones of mineralization. Mineralization is focussed along structure and at the base of impermeable cap rocks and conceptual potential exists for further high-grade mineralization to be discovered at depth.

The Ardmore East project is located approximately 70 kilometres south of Mt Isa and 1 kilometre west of Dajarra in the state of Queensland, Australia (Figure 3). The tenement comprises 100 sub-blocks covering an area of 319.4 km2 (31,940 ha). Exploration of the Ardmore district began in 1952 with various explorers looking for Cu-Pb-Zn mineralization in Mt Isa Group equivalents, as well as uranium in the Eastern Creek Volcanics. To date, the Ardmore East project comprises, two uranium prospects (Ardmore East and Black Sunday) and several copper occurrences scattered throughout the property.

A total of 33 historical drill holes for 2,392.5 metres targeting down-dip extensions of surface uranium anomalies (from airborne radiometric surveys or bulldozer costeans) were drilled within the current tenement outlines. Assay results from the 2010-2011 drilling programs on the Ardmore East prospect revealed a zone of strong U3O8/V2O5 enrichment (up to 1,627 ppm U3O8 and up to 2,229 ppm V2O5; Figure 4) with strongly anomalous REE, Phosphate and Zirconium, over a 300 m strike length which remains open. A substantial part of the mineralization is associated with an albite-calcite-hematite-magnetite-apatite alteration assemblage which appears to be structurally controlled. Costean 24, located approximately 800 m northwest of the Ardmore East prospect (Figure 4), has the highest individual grade to date on the tenement with 0.5 metres @ 8,600 ppm U3O8 (length weighted average of 3.0 m @ 3,888 ppm U3O8) indicating a potential undertested extension of the Ardmore East Prospect.

Uranium mineralization encountered at the Black Sunday prospect is located at the upper contact between altered basic tuffs and sediments of the underlying Mount Guide quartzite unit. Brannerite was identified as the primary uranium mineralization, while secondary uranium minerals consist of carnotite, tyuyamunite and meta-autunite. Uranium mineralization is associated with albitization, hematite dusting, jasper and titanomagnetite within meta-basalt and amphibolite host rocks.

The uranium mineral systems observed at Ardmore East Project are comparable to Paladin Energy Limited’s (ASX:PDN)  Valhalla deposit, that occurs ~100 km to the north. As with Ardmore, Valhalla is hosted sediment and tuff units within the Eastern Creek Volcanics on the western side of the Mt Isa Inlier. The Ardmore East Project covers over 250 sq kms of prospective Eastern Creek Volcanics with multiple other untested uranium radiometric anomalies with potential to host significant U/V mineralisation.

• $200,000 in cash upon granting of the West Newcastle Range, Teddy Mountain and Ardmore East exploration licenses 
• 598,843 CUR shares
• Two contingent payments of $500,000 (in cash or CUR Shares), should either of the following milestones being met within eight years: 
  • Month-end Ux U3O8 price as published by UxC, LLC exceeds US$60/pound
  • An NI-43-101 compliant mineral resources estimate for the West Newcastle Range and Teddy Mountain projects is prepared where the mineral resource estimate is greater than or equal to 6.0 Mlbs of U3O8, or with respect to the Ardmore East project the mineral resources estimate is greater than or equal to 3.0 Mlbs of U3O8 equivalent (U3O8 + V2O5 + REE-Y + P2O5).