(51 Tenement applications)
Aurora Minerals Limited’s wholly owned subsidiary Dawn Metals Pty Ltd (renamed from Piccadilly Resources) has applied for 51 exploration licences in 16 project areas which it considers are highly prospective for calcrete hosted uranium deposits, covering a total area of 7,875km2 within the Central and North Eastern Yilgarn block of Western Australia (refer location map).
The Projects are:
These projects were selected on the basis of the Yeerlirrie deposit Model. This is the geological model of "hot" radiogenic granites crossed by Tertiary rivers and creeks which have, over the past 12 million years or so, eroded and dissolved uranium from the granites, carried it to " quiet or semi-stagnant" areas, for example in creek bends, deltas and basins and deposited minerals such as carnotite. ( the uranium-potassium-vandium mineral )
Of particular interest is that while a significant percentage of these projects have Uranium-channel radiometric anomalies, they are all typified by extensive soil cover, thus creating the opportunity for discovery of a hidden uranium deposit at shallow depth beneath the sand. Thus the setting is similar to that of the Downs East uranium discovery of Desert Energy ( 50% owned by Aurora Minerals ) in the Northern Yilgarn Block of WA.
The discovery of uranium ( grades up to .3% U308 ) at Downs East was the result of a MagRad survey flown by Deset Energy in August 2007. This dileanated a strong radiometric trend which was followed up by geochemical sampling by its field geotechnical teams in November and December.
Aurora Minerals, following on from this successful method, flew the Texas Well, Kurrajong, Belview and Gallilee projects in February 2008 with results and follow up field work pending.