- SMDI #
- 2729
- Current Showing Name
- Banana Lake Uranium Zone or Drill Holes BAN-7 and -8
- Historical Showing Names
- Banana Lake Uranium Zone or Drill Holes BAN-7 and -8
- Company Name
- Project Name
- UTM Easting (NAD83 Z13)
- 230992.2300
- UTM Northing (NAD83 Z13)
- 6492480.3700
- NTS Sheet
- 074K05
- TRM (Township-Range-Meridian)
- 109-22-3
- Primary Commodities
- Uranium
- Associated Commodities
- Arsenic, Gold, Lead
- Discovery Type
- Drillhole
- Status
- Occurrence: Primary Exploration
- Geological Details
- The uranium mineralization which constitutes this showing was encountered by anomaly drill hole BAN-7 which was completed to test a northwest-trending splay off the Banana Lake grid D conductor. The drill hole was spudded approximately 1.1 km (0.68 mile) southeast of the southwest end of Banana Lake or 1.13 km (0.7 mile) northeast of SMDI 1153. The discovery hole was started at Banana grid coordinates 5+00N and 2+55W.
In the Banana Lake area, Churchill Rae Province and Hearne Province rocks are separated the Striding Athabasca Mylonite Zone (part of the Snowbird Tectonic Zone) which consists of a series of granulite facies mylonite belts within mylonitized granites (ca 3.2 Ga), various amphibolites, and younger (ca. 2.6 Ga) mylonitized granites. The Banana Lake grid is underlain a series of by Rae Province Slave Thelon Domain (ex Firebag Domain) granodioritic to dioritic gneisses with lesser amounts of anorthosite and granite plus minor quartzitic and pelitic paragneiss. Within the Carswell structure, one finds two lithostructural units:
(1) Carswell Series: a series of alimnous gneisses and a charnokitic complex.
(2) The Cluff Lake Series (includes Peter River and Earl River complexes):
the Earl River rocks consist of a series of mixed feldspathic and mafic
gneisses. These gneisses are overlain by Peter River aluminous gneisses.
This sequence has been interpreted as a normal detrital succession of
basal arkoses and greywackes (Earl River) which are capped by a series
of shales (Peter River).
The basement rocks on the Banana Lake grid have been metamorphosed to granulite facies. This has been followed by middle to lower amphibolite facies retrograde metamorphism. The rocks, regionally, exhibit a zoned saprolite alteration immediately below the unconformity which resulted from surface weathering before the deposition of the Athabasca sandstone. The upper saprolite or "red zone" consists of hematized basement rocks. The lower saprolite or "green zone" consists of chloritized basement rocks. At the unconformity, basement rocks also exhibit bleaching due to the reaction between the basement rocks and Athabasca sandstone formational fluids and a yellow to white clay alteration overprint on saprolitic alteration which likely postdates the deposition of the Athabasca sandstone.
Where present, the basement rocks are unconformably overlain by fine-grained, gritty, Helikian Athabasca Group conglomerates, red bed sandstones, and minor interbedded shales of the non-marine Manitou Falls or Fair Point Formation and marine Wolverine Point and Locker Lake formations. Within the Carswell Structure, these normally flat lying undeformed sediments are fractured, tectonized, and near vertical dipping. On the Banana Lake grid,which straddles the edge of the Carswell Structure, steeply dipping Athabasca Group Fair Point Formation pebbly sandstones and conglomerates have been thrust faulted into a sequence of basement rocks. The Fairpoint Formation sediments are unconformably overlain by glacial drift and outwash and lacustrine sands.
Drill hole BAN-7 encountered 19.7 m (64.6 ft) of glacial till which unconformably and directly overlies a series of strongly deformed ribbony mylonite-augen gneisses, graphitic aluminous gneisses,and graphitic quartzofeldspathic gneisses. the hole encountered multiple thrusts of Helikian conglomerate and pebble conglomerate into these mylonitic gneisses. The gneisses green zone alteration at 191 m (626.6 ft) and a deeper red zone alteration. The unconformity with a 2.8 m (9.2 ft) thick Helikian conglomerates occurs at 219.5 m (720.2 ft). A second 19.2 m (63.0 ft) thick thrust wedge of conglomerate occurs at 244.8 m (803.1 ft). The basement rocks have been cut by a series of locally clay-filled tectonic and hydraulic breccias and by the Cluff Lake Thrust breccia.
Minor pitchblende was noted as fracture coatings in the core. The pitchblende is accompanied by anomalous arsenopyrite (up to 304.3 ppm), galena (up to 416 ppm), and gold (up to 310 ppb). Drilling encountered the following intersections:
DRILLHOLE INTERSECTION WIDTH PPM PPM PPM PPM PPB INTERSECTION
NUMBER (M) (M) U PB AS NI AU DESCRIPTION
_____________________________________________________________________________
BAN-7 184.7 - 185.2 0.9 560.0 10 68 87 14 graphitic gneiss
185.2 - 185.4 0.2 12,500.0 34 304 312 310 graphitic gneiss
185.4 - 185.6 0.2 575.0 17 10 58 36 graphitic gneiss
BAN-8 61.8 - 62.0 0.2 656.0 21 1 124 2,220 granite gneiss
62.0 - 62.2 0.2 1,500.0 63 1 93 1,320 pyritic mylonite
gneiss
- Geological Domain
- Beaverlodge
- Host Rocks
- Host Minerals
- Arsenopyrite
- Indicators
- Exploration History
- 1/3/2002 In 1958, Lundberg Exploration Ltd. flew an airborne radiometric and magnetic survey over the showing area for the W.S. Kennedy (1958) Grubstake (AF 74K05-0001).
Between 1967 and 1968, Mokta (Amok) Ltd. completed an airborne gammametric survey.
The showing area was first staked by Amok Ltd. as CBS 2327 on 2 August 1970. In the following year, Amok Ltd. completed a high sensitivity aeromagnetic survey (AF 74K-0008). Between 1970 and 1971, ground geochemical and radon surveys were completed on the claim (AF 74K05-0015). In 1974, a ground VLF-EM survey was completed on CBS 2327 (AF 74K05-0042).
The claim was taken to lease (ML 5246) by Numac Oil and Gas Ltd. (50%) and Imperial Oil Ltd (50%) on 29 January 1979. In this year, Amok completed geological mapping and sampling in the showing area (AF 74K12-0049). In the following year, radiometric prospecting and mapping were completed (AF 74K05-0109) and magnetic, radon and radiohm surveys were completed (AF 74K05-0111). In 1982, a helicopterborne EM survey was flown by Aerodat (AF 74K-0009). ML 5246 was dropped on 3 September 1989.
On 1 February 1992, Cogema Resources Inc staked the showing area as S-104629.
In 1994, a Cogema-Sailview Ventures-Far West Mining joint venture flew an airborne GEOTEM survey over the claim (AF 74K-0012) and completed drill holes BAN-1 to-3 on the Banana Lake grid (AF 74K12-0046). In 1997, the partners completed ground HLEM, magnetic, and gravity surveys on the Banana Lake grid (AF 74K05-0136). In 1998, follow-up anomaly drill holes BAN-4 to BAN-11 were completed (AF 74K05-0139). Drill hole BAN-7 encountered the mineralization which constitutes this showing.
In 1998, Cogema completed drill holes DGN-01 and DGN-02 to test the eastern portion of the D conductor and hole DGN-03 to test the C conductor at the Banana Lake Showing (AF 74K05-0138). No significant mineralization was encountered by this drill program.
- Production History
- Reserves and/or Resources