YELLOW ROCK RESOURCES LIMITED - ASX: YRR

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Description

YRR listed on the ASX on 21st February 2007. The company was formed to consolidate mining tenements that are prospective for vanadium and uranium. Since listing on the ASX, the company has acquired a number of mining tenements located in both Western Australia and the Northern Territory that are highly prospective for uranium.

Gabanintha Vanadium Project — Western Australia

The Project, consisting of five leases, is located 43 km south east of Meekatharra and is accessible from the Great Northern Highway. The geological setting is an extensive anorthositic gabbro that is known to strike north west along the 12.2 km strike length of the tenements. The gabbro hosts a series of titaniferous magnetite bands and these are the main focus for vanadium mineralisation. Modern exploration of the region began in the 1960s when Mangore Pty Ltd sampled and drilled some of the outcropping vanadiferous magnetite in the northern tenements. Consistent grades of 1.2 to 1.3% V2O5 over widths of 6 to 25 metres were obtained while some holes drilled to a depth of 70 metres were still in ore.

Eventually Greater Pacific Gold Ltd re-assessed the previous data and in 2000 completed a successful drilling program allowing the declaration of a JORC standard Indicated Mineral Resource:

OXIDISED 20,638,000 tonnes @ 0.49% V2O5 and 06.62% TiO2
UNOXIDISED 17,021,000 tonnes @ 1.05% V2O5 and 12.25% TiO2
TOTAL 37,659,000 MT @ 0.75% V2O5 and 8.89% TiO2

It must be noted that the above Resource was measured across 8 km of the 12.2 km strike length and drilled to a vertical depth of 50 metres. A full evaluation of mineralisation across the entire width of the leases and drilling to a depth of 150 metres has the potential to increase the resource tonnage by more than a factor of 3. Compared to other Australian vanadium deposits Gabanintha, at present, contains the second highest grade of 0.75% V2O5.

The Indicated Mineral Resource table shows the Unoxidised ore has the higher average value of 1.05% and all ore below the 50-metre mark falls into this category. When the full evaluation of the Project is completed and drilled to the depth of 150 metres, a re-stated JORC resource would indicate a higher vanadium percentage. This figure has the potential to make the Gabanintha Project the richest vanadium resource in Australia.

The Company geologist believes there is an excellent chance that gold, base metals or Platinum Group Metals could also occur within this complex Archaean sequence.

Gabanintha Uranium Project — Western Australia

The Gabanintha Project is situated 43 kilometres south east of Meekatharra and is accessible from the Great Northern Highway. The five granted tenements cover an area of 58 km²and host a strike length 12.2 km of Archaean mafics, ultramafics and intermediate rocks. The area is prospective for uranium as well as gold and base metals. The nearby occurrences of uranium found at Kelly Bore, Quinn’s Lake and Cogla Downs are all within 40 km of the tenure while the giant Yeelirrie uranium deposit lies 100 km to the east. The nearest source of uranium mineralisation is a JORC standard deposit on the YRR tenement at Nowthanna, 5 kilometres to the south.

Information available from Government surveys shows the regional total count radiometrics confirm the presence of high-response Palaeo-drainages in the area. These Palaeo-channels return a good enough signal to suggest that significant uranium source rocks are present. Uranium exploration commenced in this area in the 1970s with WMC being the most active explorer. It discovered the world’s first uranium calcrete-hosted style deposit at Nowthanna as well as several other uranium occurrences culminating with the world’s largest calcrete-hosted deposit at Yeelirrie. These WMC leases, now controlled by BHP, hold an estimated 51,000 tonnes of contained U3O8. Concerns at the time about the future of the uranium industry caused WMC to withdraw from further uranium exploration in the region.

Demand for the clean electrical energy that nuclear power provides, the future of uranium exploration is assured.

The exploration potential of the leases for uranium is considered high because:

Most drilling to date has been confined to the vanadium resource areas and uranium has not been targeted.
Exploration drilling and sampling on sections of two of the leases has so far only been reconnaissance in nature.
Numerous uranium occurrences have been discovered on nearby tenements, strengthening the prospectivity claims of the Gabanintha leases.

Nowthanna Uranium Project — Western Australia

The Nowthanna lease is located 47 km south east of Meekatharra and is accessible from the Great Northern Highway. The tenement covers a portion of the calcrete Palaeo-channel near the Quinn’s Lake inland drainage. The predominant minerals are developed from extensive weathering and leaching of uranium-bearing domes and nearby Archaean mafic and ultramafic rocks that are high in vanadium.

The uranium exploration era began in the 1970s when WMC, Union Miniere, BHP and Rio Tinto became active across the Sandstone to Wiluna region. The WMC uranium discovery at Nowthanna was the first calcrete-hosted style deposit found in the world. Later WMC found the massive resource, hosted in a similar style, at Yeelirrie. These leases hold an estimated 51,000 tonnes of contained U3O8. In the late 1990s Acclaim Uranium NL actively explored the Nowthanna area and defined a JORC standard resource on the current YRR lease. The resource measured 3,289 contained tonnes of U3O8 from 7,309,450 tonnes of ore at 0,450 kg/t.

The exploration potential to find further uranium on the lease is high because:

Most drilling to date has been confined to the Palaeo-channel resource targets, not lacustrine sediment uranium targets.
Exploration drilling and sampling on sections of the area has only been reconnaissance in nature.
Poor coverage of detailed ground geophysics has limited the geology data.
Masking, caused by recent alluvial soil and lake cover, has limited geochemistry data.

Douglas Range Uranium Project — Northern Territory

This Project is located 120 km south east of Darwin and the granted tenement covers an area of 471 km². The lease is situated on the Pine Creek Geosyncline, which is recognized as a major uranium and gold province. Geologically, these areas are identified as suitable to host unconformity and vein-style uranium deposits similar to the mineralisation type found further east in the Alligator Rivers Uranium Field (ARUF).

NTGS open data and TMI images illustrate the excellent potential of the Pine Creek Mineral Field. This prospectivity has been confirmed by substantial uranium and gold discoveries in areas close to Douglas Range.

Located 40 km to the south west is the South Alligator Valley Uranium Field, one of the richest uranium mining areas ever found in Australia. The initial discovery of this Field was made in 1953 and by the time the Valley had been worked out in 1965, more than 12 individual mines had been operating.

Three specialist uranium companies are exploring the area 20 km south west of Douglas Range. One has a small historical uranium deposit that is being tested for extensions to the mineralisation. Another company has found a significant uranium occurrence, which is being subjected to further drilling.

In the Douglas Range area uranium can be expected to be associated with Tertiary-Proterozoic unconformity, major Palaeo-drainages, deep-seated basement fault structures and in traps within the Proterozoic and Tertiary sediment sequences.

Arunta

YRR holds four tenements in the Arunta region of the Northern Territory located 200 to 350 km north west of Alice Springs.

During the 1970s and 1980s there was considerable uranium exploration activity throughout the areas west and north west of Alice Springs, stretching to the West Australian border. Major companies like BHP Minerals, Energy Reserves Canada, Uranerz and Power Nuclear Japan, were active across the Region and successfully established uranium deposits at Angela, Pamela, Bigryli and Napperby. Many other occurrences were logged but were never followed up as uranium exploration effectively ceased in 1983. After the political controls on uranium exploration and mining changed in 1996, specialist uranium exploration companies have returned in numbers to the central Northern Territory.

The deposits of Bigryli, Nolans Bore and Napperby have been confirmed to JORC standard while the significant uranium occurrences at Walbiri, Mt. Wedge, Malawiri, Yalrymbi, New Well and Currinya are all undergoing systematic exploration.

The four uranium prospective tenements overlie the early Proterozoic metamorphics and granitoids of the Arunta Block and are located on the edges of the Ngalia Basin.

The deformed granites are known to have a high radiometric total count and were emplaced during a major up-warping deformation episode in the late Archaean orogeny.

The exposure of the granites and gneisses, by doming, is considered to have allowed uranium-bearing material to be eroded and accumulated in the Palaeo-channel drainages. Therefore it is expected that pegmatites, veins and disseminations of radioactive minerals could be sourced within these rocks.

Mine For

iron ore, titanium, vanadium

Location of operation(s)

Western Australia, Northern Territroy

Address

15 Colin Street
WEST PERTH, WA, AUSTRALIA

Phone

(61 8) 6460 0250

Email

Website

http://www.yrr.com.au/

Last Updated

19/5/2011