The Shea Creek Project, owned jointly by AREVA Resources Canada Inc. and UEX Corporation, with AREVA acting as project operator, is an advanced uranium project located approximately 700km NNW of Saskatoon and approximately 30km east of the Alberta border, within the western Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan. The property is underlain by two dominant lithologies: metamorphic basement rocks of Archean and Paleoproterozoic granitoid, covered by Proterozoic flat-lying to shallow-dipping, post-metamorphic quartz sandstone.
Uranium mineralisation is of the unconformity-associated uranium deposit type. It occurs 710 to 740 meters below the current surface and beneath the thick sequence of Athabasca Group sandstone. Three styles of mineralisation are encountered, based on their position adjacent to the Athabasca unconformity, and overall morphology. They comprise unconformity-hosted, basement-hosted, and perched uranium mineralisation. Uranium mineralisation is associated with extensive clay alteration, which affects the lower sandstone and extends into the basement rocks.
SRK evaluated and refined an existing structural site model to define the potential risks to a conceptual stage underground mine design. SRK then incorporated the analysis of drillcore data and photos, 3D geological modelling, whole-rock geochemistry, and geophysics to evaluate the potential structures, which are blind at surface. During the studies four generations of faults were identified, each with individual fill, roughness, strength, and permeability characteristics, including previously unidentified faults that may affect uranium distribution.
