| Project Summary |
| Project Operator: | Frontier Pacific Mining Corporation |
| Location: | Southeastern Peru |
| Description: | Mineral concessions on 45,000 hectares |
| Geology: | Uranium mineralization hosted in Ignimbrites |
| Exploration: | Continuing surface radiometrics, mapping and sampling program |
| Exploration Drilling: | Phase One Drill Program Complete; Phase Two to Commence March 2008
|
| Ownership: | JV - 50% Frontier Pacific, 50% Solex Resources |
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Location
The Macusani Concessions are situated in the Province of Carabaya, Macusani District in southeastern Peru. The concessions lie in the relatively flat Altiplano terrain at elevations between 4200 and 5000 meters above sea level. All of the uranium targets are accessible by gravel roads from the town of Macusani.
Description
A total of approximately 45,000 hectares has been acquired in 67 concessions covering prospective uranium mineral occurrences in the district. The concessions have over 52 uranium showings and anomalies identified by the Peruvian Institute of Nuclear Energy ("IPEN").
Geology
Three major events of felsic volcanism have been identified within the Macusani JV area. The three felsic volcanic members, from oldest to youngest, are called the Chacacuniza, Zapanuta and Yapamayo Members. Each geological member consists of a series of ignimbrite (mass and debris) flows disconformably overlying each other. The project area is bound to the north and east by older Proterozoic rocks. The Yapamayo Member dominates the eastern part of the project area and has been recorded upto 500m in thickness.
Four different ignimbrite units have been identified within the Yapamayo Member. Each ignimbrite unit contains several facies varying from air-fall tuffs, waterlain tuffs, pumice-rich monomictic tuffs, polymictic tuffs and welded tuffs.
Uranium mineralization is both structurally and stratigraphically controlled within a particular facies of two of the four ignimbrite units.
Exploration
Since late 2005, exploration on the Macusani Concessions has consisted of:
- Ground radiometric surveys over the known showings to determine the extent of the mineralization.
- Detailed mapping and prospecting;
- Channel and chip sampling of the showings; and
- Channel sampling from ten trenches in an identified target area.
- These exploration program are ongoing with the aim to identify and delineating new drill targets.
Exploration Drilling
Between April and June 2006, the Company completed 1780 meters of trial core drilling on four distinct Uranium targets: Sayana Central, Calvario I, Puncopata and Agaton, Forty-four shallow holes were drilled from eight platforms. These four Uranium targets within the Macusani concessions were identified by very large radiometric surveys completed by the Company in late 2005 and are separated by as much as 17 kilometers in distance.
Drill results from four zones indicate good continuity and grade of uranium over substantial widths within coarse grained, predominantly flat lying, ignimbrite breccias. It is important to appreciate that, in each case, the trial drilling focused on a very small portion of the previously identified uranium bearing anomalies, which in many cases, measure up to several square kilometers in surface area. The first phase exploration covered an area of less than ten percent of the Macusani Concessions.
In December 2006, the 20,000 metre drill program began at Calvario III. This program has been designed to target the 7 prospects with the strongest geophysical anomalies from the exploration work carried out till November 2006. Four of those prospects were drilled in early 2006 and had significant uranium mineralization. A further three prospects were selected and included as part of the 20,000m drill program. Drill Program Complete: Results Pending.
Metallurgy
The near surface setting of the uranium mineralization potentially lends itself to very low mining and recovery costs for uranium. Initial agitation leach tests were carried out by Lakefield Research of Toronto under the supervision of Melis Engineering of Saskatoon to confirm the leachability of the uranium. The tests on Sayana Prospect samples returned a high uranium extraction of 97.6% U3O8. Bottle roll leach testing is showing that high extraction rates of up to 89.8% of the contained uranium can be achieved in the first three days of leaching using mild acid solutions. The composite sample submitted for testing, with a uranium assay head grade of 3.8 pounds per ton (0.19% U3O8), is very low in associated deleterious elements which would contribute to the ease of processing in terms of uranium extraction and recovery, capital costs and downstream waste management.
© Copyright 2008
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