TNT Mines has expanded its strategic uraniferous ground holdings in Utah, pegging the southern strike extensions of its historic high-grade ‘None Such’ and ‘Bonanza’ mines at East Canyon. The tactical move comes on the back of recent sampling in the old underground workings that has returned a plethora of high-grade results and highlighted the untapped potential of the Uravan uranium-vanadium mineral field in the USA.
TNT’s East Canyon uranium-vanadium project is located in south-eastern Utah in the central United States. The company acquired the project area back in May of this year but has wasted no time, leaping into a program of reconnaissance and sampling through the highly prospective terrane.
TNT has quickly come to grips with the geology and nature of the uranium mineralisation over the high-grade East Canyon project with exploration already paying dividends. Recent underground sampling has returned a rash of high-grade assays with samples grading up to 3,400 ppm uranium oxide and 4.5 per cent vanadium pentoxide.
Arguable however, the best is yet to come with a suite of uber-high-grade samples having yet to be reported by the labs. These samples were rejected by facilities in the US due to their excessively high levels of radioactivity and were classed as ‘too hot to handle’. They are now being processed by a lab in Canada.
Flush with its recent sampling success, TNT is now consolidating its position over the East Canyon terrane and has staked an additional 31 ‘unpatended’ lode claims immediately south of its existing tenure in the northern project area.
The new claims secure the southern extensions of the None Such and Bonanza mines, covering an additional kilometre of strike south of the old underground workings that will allow the company to chase the uraniferous host rocks in the area under cover.
The uranium-vanadium mineralisation at East Canyon is sediment hosted with the target stratigraphy, the Salt Wash Member, outcropping over more than 8 square kilometres within the company’s tenure.
The East Canyon project lies between the towns of Moab and Monticello in Utah, with TNT’s claims covering more than 4,000 hectares of the region that was made famous by its historical uranium production. The tenure takes in two historical mining centres, whose history dates back to the late 19th century.
The two mining centres include the Blackhawk-Loya Ray mining centre in the south, where the company’s work program has yet to kick-off and the Bonanza group in the north, where exploration has been focused around the Bonanza and None Such mines, producing results that have prompted TNT’s pegging spree.
The company isn’t in the Uravan Mineral Belt by pure chance. The belt is home to a number of significant uranium and vanadium deposits and is well serviced with infrastructure, including the only permitted, and operating, conventional uranium mill in the United States – the White Mesa Mill.
The uranium-vanadium deposits of the Uravan belt are hosted by near surface, flat lying sediments and occur as individual ore bodies or in clusters. The size of the uraniferous deposits throughout the field varies but can range from a few hundred thousand tonnes to more than a million tonnes of ore.
Historical production in the field is estimated at an imposing 86 mlbs at 0.24% uranium and 441 mlbs at 1.25% vanadium, ably facilitated in modern times by the White Mesa mill.
White Mesa is situated a mere 50km south of TNT’s project area and is operated by Canadian-based Energy Fuels Inc.
TNT looks to be playing its cards close to its chest as exploration advances across its smoking hot uranium terrane at East Canyon. The company has consolidated its ground position in the Uravan and is now well positioned as it eagerly awaits the results from its highly radioactive samples being processed by the Canadian labs.
At East Canyon TNT may well prove that old mineral fields never die.
Is your ASX listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
