Total of 40 Drill Holes Planned
During systematic uranium exploration at the northern edge of the Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan, Aero Energy (TSXV AERO / Frankfurt UU3) has discovered new visible mineralization with strong radioactivity at the surface. The geologists see this as confirmation of their underlying exploration thesis and have identified additional drilling targets in the Sun Dog project near Uranium City, Saskatchewan.
Sun Dog covers an area of 48,443 acres across nine mining claims and is located 15 km from Uranium City at the northern edge of the Athabasca Basin. It hosts the historical Gunnar uranium mine, which was discovered in 1952 and doubled Canada’s uranium production, becoming the world’s largest uranium producer in 1956. Between 1953 and 1981, approximately 18 million pounds of U3O8 were mined at the Gunnar mine.
The drilling campaign planned for the coming weeks aims to test high-priority targets that have the potential to host high-grade, unconformity-related uranium mineralization in the basement along structural and conductive corridors. Several promising drilling targets were prioritized following the exploration of conductive (graphitic) rock trends identified during the recent VTEMTM Plus airborne survey. Aero has entered into a three-year earn-in option with Standard Uranium Ltd. (TSX-V: STND) for the project, effective from October 20, 2023. The program will be financed by Aero and operated by Standard. Aero emphasizes that the additional drilling is fully funded.
Additional Target Areas in Focus
Besides drilling on Sun Dog, other target areas are on the program. In the Wishbone target area, recent prospecting has revealed new and historical uranium mineralization at the surface with radioactivity values of up to 22,300 counts per second (“cps”) within and immediately adjacent to graphitic pelite (Figure 2) that have never been tested by drilling.
In the McNie target area, more than 4 km of untested VTEMTM conductors have been identified, interrupted by larger faults that host known uranium occurrences to the east and west towards the former Gulch uranium mine (Figure 3).
In the Spring Dome target area, new and historical zones of strong radioactivity >65,535 cps at the surface, associated with visible uranium mineralization, were discovered during the recent prospecting program in the Spring Dome target area (Figure 4). The Wishbone and Spring Dome target areas contain numerous historical high-grade uranium assays from outcrop samples ranging between 0.30% and 17.4% U3O8.
2024 Sun Dog Drilling Program: Drilling is expected to begin on July 21; the program will cover approximately 1,000 to 1,200 meters in five to seven drill holes. The program will be results-driven, with changes made based on ongoing results and interpretations.
Drilling at Murmac continues. Drilling on the adjacent Murmac project is progressing well, and the company looks forward to publishing a progress update jointly with Fortune Bay Corp. in the near future.
Galen McNamara, CEO of Aero Energy, stated: “Our recent discovery of strong radioactivity in the right host rock, known as graphitic pelite, in drill hole M24-017 on the adjacent Murmac property with our partner Fortune Bay Corp. proves that our exploration thesis in this area is correct. This, in turn, opens up a new search space extending over more than 30 km where extensive and untested bodies of these graphitic pelite host rocks are known to host significant high-grade uranium deposits such as Arrow and Triple R around the Athabasca Basin. These areas now represent high-priority drilling targets, and we look forward to testing them.”
Figure 1: High-grade uranium occurrences and EM conductors on the Sun Dog project, highlighting target areas for summer 2024 drilling.
Figure 2: Detailed map of the Spring Dome target area highlighting newly discovered strong radioactivity >65,535 cps and drilling targets.
Conclusion: Aero Energy can build on Standard Uranium’s preliminary work in its exploration. In the winters of 2022 and 2023, Standard completed a total of fourteen drill holes (2,469 m) of diamond drilling, revealing the key geological features typical of significant uranium mineralization systems. Aero aims to complete around 40 drill holes in the current season. This should ensure a steady news flow, while the stock is currently trading at only about half of the last placement price.
