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| Introduction |
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GCR's 100% owned subsidiary, King
Eagle Resources (KER), has a large tenement package covering 876 km2
of prospective Cambrian phosphate units within the Georgina Basin. The
tenements contain five major deposits of phosphorite with historically
calculated resources of over 500Mt of 15.5% P205.
Potential exists for the tenements to contain large low-grade uranium
deposits that are formed at shallow depths where meteoric water
precipitates uranium in phosphate rich horizons, permeable structures
and unconformities.
Late in 2007 a joint venture agreement
was signed with Legend International Holdings Inc (Legend). Under the
agreements, Legend may earn an 80% interest in phosphate minerals on
the tenement package by spending $3 million on exploration and
development by 7 December 2012. GCR retains all rights to all other
minerals, including uranium. Legend must spend $200,000 on the
properties before it may withdraw from the farm-in. Once Legend earns
an 80% interest in the phosphate minerals, GCR will retain a 20%
interest in the phosphate minerals, free carried to a decision to mine.
Legend will routinely assay for uranium as part of its exploration
programs on the properties.
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| Geological Setting and Uranium
Deposition Model
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 The Mount Isa district probably
represents one of the most prospective areas in Australia for the
discovery of near surface uranium resources and intense uranium
exploration is currently being conducted by a numerous companies,
including Summit Resources and Deep Yellow.
Newland Resources and
Summit are currently conducting a uranium exploration program over
12,000 km2 of the Georgina Basin to the west of the Mount Isa Inlier
with tenements surrounding GCR’s. Summit have variously reported JORC compliant
resources of 85.3Mlb U3O8 at their Valhalla, Andersons,
Bikini, Watta and Skal projects. GCR's exploration is targeting
secondary
uranium deposits in reducing environments and associated structural
traps within the Georgina Basin.
The Cambrian Georgina Basin in
northwest Queensland contains Australia’s largest phosphate resources.
These sedimentary phosphorite deposits occur where phosphorous has been
precipitated as apatite group minerals in a marine environment. The
main phosphate horizon, the Beetle Creek Formation, comprises a series
of phosphatic siltstones and cherts overlying limestone and basal
sandstone and conglomerate.
The Rimmer Hill uranium-phosphate
occurrence, which is located 100km east of Quita Creek and 20km north
of Southern Cross Fertilizer Pty Ltd’s current phosphate mining
operation, confirms the prospectivity of the phosphorite units to host
significant uranium mineralisation. Uranium at Rimmer Hill, which
occurs within bedded phosphate sediments, is probably formed by the
natural reduction of uranium-bearing fluids by in situ phosphate
mineralisation.
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| Prospect
Details |
| Quita
Creek |
 Legend International continue to work on the phosphate
potential in the Quite Creek tenement which contains two large
phosphate deposits, Steamboat and Quita Creek.
The
tenement is generally covered by these phosphate rich sediments but the
basement to these are ultramafics of the Mt Isa western succession
which is prospective for Mt Isa style copper mineralisation. The
magnetic map of the tenement clearly shows the underlying ultramafics
which have been modelled to be around 50m beneath the sediments.
A submission has been made to the QLD Government for funding
assistance under the Collaborative Drilling Initiative to drill beneath
these phosphate-rich sediments to the rocks of the Western Succession.
The Initiative is open to all explorers in Queensland and will
pay up to $150,000 for direct drilling costs. The program
planned for Quita Creek is for four holes totaling 1,000 metres of
RC and Diamond drilling for which we could recover $50,000. The
drilling program is expected to commence in the second quarter of this
year.
Legend
recently flew detailed magnetics and radiometrics over the three
tenements. KER had the radiometrics remodelled and the results
highlight several areas of anomalous uranium as can be seen by the
figure opposite. In general colours yellow to red a three to five
times the average background value. Some of these anomalous zones
are several hunderd metres long. When viewed in conjunction with
the topography these zones tend to be located at the same RL which
indicates that they are stratigraphically controlled. This bodes
well for locating useful uranium mineralisation and these areas will be
the first to be worked on once the wet season subsides.
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| Lily
& Sherrin Creeks |
 The tenement is
located approximately 100km northwest of Mount Isa and a covers
Cambrian sedimentary basin to the west of the Sybella Granite complex -
a potential uranium source.
The property lies 50 km west of the
Valhalla and Skal uranium deposits and contains two large phosphorite
deposits.
The primary target is secondary enrichment occurrences of uranium
within the phosphate deposits.
Like in the Quita Creek tenement the new radiometric data has
highlighted
several areas with anomalous uranium responses. And like Quita Creek
the distribution of these anomalies with respect to topography
indicates that they are stratigraphically controlled. While there
are fewer anomalies that Quita Creek those that exist are certainly
worth following up once we have gained access to the area after the
monsoon season.
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| Highlands
Plains |
 The property is
located about 200km northwest of Mount Isa and 90km south of the
Westmoreland uranium deposit which contains 21,000 tonnes of U3O8. The
tenement also contains phosphorite mineralisation within the Cambrian sedimentary basin. The primary
target for GCR is secondary enrichment occurrences of uranium within
sedimentary phosphate deposits.
The
Legend survey was restricted to the north-western corner of the
tenement so the data was not as useful here. However lower
resolution data is available from previous explorers and the
diagram to the left is a composite image of three
radiometric channels with potassium coloured red, throium coloured
green and
uranium coloured blue. The white areas are where all three
components are high and black areas where none of them are high.
The preponderence of green and blue in the tenement suggest that
thorium and uranium and the dominant components and the areas of blue
the most prospective if searching for uranium.
Negotiations
with the traditional landowners have been successful and Legend have
permission to drill the first phase of 60 RC holes in the phosphate
deposit. This work is expected to commence after the monsoon
season sometime after March. |
| February 2009 |
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