Last checked at 5 Nov 2009 08:32
5 November 2009
BERKELEY RESOURCES LIMITED
Initial High Grade Drilling Results at the
Salamanca Uranium Project
Berkeley is pleased to announce the initial results from the confirmatory diamond drilling program at the Mina D deposit in Spain.
All of the completed holes to date have intercepted their intended targets, with the thickness and grade of the intercepts providing strong confidence in the historic ENUSA results upon which Berkeley has based its exploration targets.
Three rigs mobilised to site on 14 October and the results of the first 4 holes are reported in Table 1 (NB. MDD-003 is still drilling). The results are based on down-hole gamma logging undertaken by Berkeley and are presented as equivalent U3O8 ppm grades or eU3O8. All of the mineralised intervals will be chemically assayed at a later stage.
Table 1 - Drill Hole Intersections
| Hole ID | Northing | Easting | Elevation | Depth | From | To | Interval | eU3O8 |
|
| (m) | (m) | (m) | (m) | (m) | (m) | (m) | (ppm) |
| MDD-001 | 701418 | 4500972 | 628.2 | 72 | 33.73 | 36.02 | 2.29 | 275 |
| MDD-001 |
|
|
|
| 46.85 | 56.24 | 9.39 | 6,070 |
| MDD-002 | 701395 | 4500984 | 627.7 | 84 | 41.25 | 44.42 | 3.17 | 332 |
| MDD-002 |
|
|
|
| 52.19 | 54.95 | 2.76 | 278 |
| MDD-002 |
|
|
|
| 56.92 | 68.44 | 11.52 | 881 |
| MDD-003 | 701392 | 4500556 | 659.2 | 100 | Drilling | |||
| MDD-004 | 701176 | 4500783 | 655.2 | 90 | 38.68 | 39.82 | 1.14 | 317 |
| MDD-004 |
|
|
|
| 55.19 | 63.24 | 8.05 | 1,863 |
| MDD-004 |
|
|
|
| 75.12 | 76.25 | 1.13 | 577 |
| MDD-005 | 701440 | 4500644 | 640.6 | 65 | 29.26 | 31.26 | 2.00 | 315 |
| MDD-005 |
|
|
|
| 36.40 | 41.42 | 5.02 | 1,583 |
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All of the intersections correlated well in both grade and thickness with nearby ENUSA roto-percussion and diamond drill holes.
Mineralisation is hosted in fractured phyllites and occurs as pitchblende in veinlets and on fracture surfaces.
Mina D was previously mined by ENUSA and the unmined portions of the deposit are the first target for Berkeley's confirmatory drilling campaign. In addition to confirming the historic drilling results, this campaign is intended to provide a better understanding of the ENUSA Uranium Deposits and allow Berkeley to estimate JORC compliant resources. Further confirmatory drilling is expected to commence at the Sageras and Alameda South deposits in November.
Notes
The uranium grades reported in this release are annotated with a sub-prefix "e" because they have been reported as uranium equivalent grades derived from down-hole gamma ray logging results and so they should be regarded as approximations only. Equivalent U3O8 results may be affected by local disequilibrium caused by the mobility of uranium or the presence of radon.
The down hole gamma probe used is a digital GeoVista Natural Gamma Ray probe calibrated on a bi-monthly basis at the ENUSA custom built calibration test pit.
Down-hole gamma logging of drill holes provides a powerful tool for uranium companies to explore for and evaluate uranium deposits. This method measures the natural gamma rays emitted from the material surrounding a drill hole.
Drill hole co-ordinates are in UTM 29 ED 50 Datum grid and have been surveyed using a DGPS.
Drill intersections are calculated using a 200 ppm eU3O8 lower cut-off with a minimum 1 metre intersection.
The geological units at Mina D are dipping at approximately 30º and the drill holes have been inclined to intersect the mineralisation at right angles so the intervals are approximately true thickness.
As a check on the down-hole gamma logging data, hand held scintillometer readings were taken along the mineralised sections of the core and averaged out every 50cm. These showed good correlation with the down-hole gamma readings and were used to identify sections which may have been affected by radon. The down-hole gamma results also confirmed visual observations of significant uranium mineralisation in all of the holes.