PROJECTS
HBME is exploring for uranium the following properties in the Hornby Bay Basin:
- The Coppermine Property, which is 100% owned by HBME and consists of 16 mineral claims and 39 mining leases covering 117,933 acres (47,725 hectares).
- The HBME / MIE Metals Corporation Joint Venture, which is a 50/50 joint venture with MIE Metals Corporation on 29 mineral claims and 1 mining lease covering 60,906 acres (24,648 hectares). HBME is the operator of 10 mineral claims of the property, covering 25,825 acres (10,451 hectares), and owns 13 mineral claims and one mining lease of the joint venture, covering 36,144 acres (14,627 hectares).
Property Information
HBME is exploring for uranium the following properties in the Hornby Bay Basin:
- The Coppermine Property, which is 100% owned by HBME and consists of 16 mineral claims and 39 mining leases covering 117,933 acres (47,725 hectares).
- The HBME / MIE Metals Corporation Joint Venture, which is a 50/50 joint venture with MIE Metals Corporation on 29 mineral claims and 1 mining lease covering 60,906 acres (24,648 hectares). HBME is the operator of 10 mineral claims of the property, covering 25,825 acres (10,451 hectares), and owns 13 mineral claims and one mining lease of the joint venture, covering 36,144 acres (14,627 hectares).
Data Integration and Processing
For the area covered by its uranium properties, HBME has built a multilayered GIS database using ESRI’s ArcMap software. The multilayered database integrates all geological, geochemical, geophysical, and drill hole information acquired by HBME, as well as relevant data from BP Minerals 1970’s to early 1980’s uranium exploration data for western Nunavut, which HBME bought in 1996. In addition, HBME uses Geosoft’s Oasis Montaj software for the imaging, analysis, processing, and modeling of geophysical data, and for the digital imaging of drill hole data in cross-section format.
Accessibility, Physiography, Climate, and Infrastructure
Access to HBME’s Western Nunavut properties is by float or ski equipped aircraft from Yellowknife, the capital city of the Northwest Territories, or from Kugluktuk, a town of approximately 1200 inhabitants situated on the south shore of the Coronation Gulf . Many of the larger lakes in the area are suitable for landing small aircraft. Crew and equipment mobilization within the project area is by helicopter from the base camp at Mouse Lake. Scheduled air service is available between Yellowknife and Kugluktuk, where there is an allweather gravel airstrip. Kugluktuk is also connected to Hay River in the Northwest Territories by a barge service that operates from mid-July to mid-September.
The topography of the region has moderate relief with rolling hills and ridges incised by the Coppermine River and its tributaries. Locally the relief can reach variations of up to 400 meters. The Coppermine River flows through a flat valley until it spreads out to a wide plain near the Arctic Coast. Tundra uplands rise gradually from the floor of the valley, which lies at an elevation of about 275 meters, to an elevation of about 650 meters to the north of the river and to about 450 meters in the area south of the Coppermine River. Inthe upland areas, there are numerous lakes whose general orientation reflects the most recent ice advance
in the area during the last ice age. These uplands are generally barren of trees, with only sedges, willows and occasionally stunted spruce and bushes. Ground cover consists of moss, lichens and arctic grasses. The ground is permanently frozen to a depth of 300 meters, with only the first few meters thawing in the summer. Frost boils are abundant and provide an excellent soil sample medium. Fairly dense stands of tall spruce occur in the sheltered valley of the Coppermine River, but these die out at an elevation of approximately 350 meters. As the tundra region of the Western Nunavut properties is located close to the tree line, there is a wide variety of wildlife including grizzly and black bears, wolverines, moose, musk oxen,
caribou, fox, wolves, rabbits, weasels, birds, and ducks.
Precipitation falls mainly in the form of snow between September and late May. The average annual rainfall is 133.4 millimeters and the average annual snowfall is 165.7 centimeters. The lakes generally freeze in October and break up is in late June. Summers are generally clear and dry, with temperatures ranging from 8°C to 14°C. Winters are long and cold, with temperatures ranging from -20°C to -35°C. Daylight ranges from about 3 hours in mid-December to 24 hours in mid-June.
HBME operates from a 40-man base camp situated on the southern shore of Mouse Lake. The camp is located approximately 550 kilometers north of Yellowknife and about 70 kilometers south of Kugluktuk. Triex Minerals operates from a camp at Kirwan Lake, approximately 40 kilometers to the west, and MIE Metals Corporation has a camp at McGregor Lake, approximately 25 kilometers to the east. The Mouse Lake camp is comprised of eighteen wooden-frame tent structures that provide ample facilities for core logging, office work, storage, power generation, first aid, food preparation and sleeping. In addition, the camp is equipped with a refuse burner, helicopter pad, bermed fuel storage and refueling facilities, a retractable dock, and a small boat. Satellite communications include internet and telephone service.
Short History of Uranium Exploration in the Hornby Bay Basin Area
Exploration for uranium in the Great Bear Lake - Hornby Bay Basin region was fuelled by the discovery and commercial exploitation of pitchblende vein deposits at Port Radium on the east shore of Great Bear Lake in the 1940's. In the late 1940's and early 1950’s, some work was done to the east of Great Bear Lake but without encouraging results. In the 1970's and early 1980’s, there was resurgence in uranium exploration and systematic work was conducted in the Hornby Bay Basin. Companies including Acquitaine, Esso Resources, BP Minerals, Gulf Minerals, Hudson's Bay Oil and Gas, Cominco, Uranerz, Alberta Energy
Corporation, CDC Oil and Gas, Union Carbide, and Phillips Petroleum Western Hemisphere were active in the Hornby Bay Basin. This work resulted in the discovery, by Esso Resources in 1976, of the Mountain Lake deposit, a small, sub-economic deposit hosted by sandstones of the Dismal Lakes Group. By the late 1970's BP Minerals Ltd. held virtually all the prospective ground in the eastern part of the Hornby Bay Basin, in areas corresponding to the southern and eastern regions of HBME’s Coppermine Property. The exploration activity conducted by BP Minerals Ltd. and affiliated companies terminated abruptly in the mid 1980's when the price of uranium plummeted.
The deposit model employed by BP Minerals Ltd. in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s was based on the Rabbit Lake uranium deposit, which is an unconformity-associated uranium deposit on the eastern margin of the Athabasca basin in Saskatchewan. Since the Rabbit Lake deposit is basement-hosted and its sandstone cover was eroded in the geologic past, the exploration approach used in the 1970’s focused on structures in basement rocks peripheral to the areas of Proterozoic sandstone formations. A secondary model was based on the high-grade El Dorado uranium/ silver mine, which was a complex vein-type deposit hosted by a shear zone in Early Proterozoic gneissic rocks on the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake. The basement areas marginal to the Hornby Bay basin provided excellent geological potential for both model types. Although numerous small occurrences of uranium were discovered in basement rocks by this early exploration effort, none of the occurrences had dimensions that approached economic potential. The work did demonstrate, however, that numerous roots of high-grade uranium mineralization are present in favourable basement rocks of the Proterozoic Hornby Bay basin.
In 1996, HBME bought the BP Minerals’ uranium exploration data for western Nunavut, which covers HBME’s Coppermine Property, and parts of the ground covered by the HBME / MIE Metals Corporation Joint Venture. The BP data includes geological, geophysical, geochemical, and drill-hole data presented in map and cross-section formats, and detailed in numerous reports.
Geological Background
The Hornby Bay Basin is one of the major Proterozoic sandstone basins of Canada with the following main characteristics:
- Same age and regional setting as the Athabasca and Thelon basins, which host major uranium deposits.
- Contains the sandstone-hosted Mountain Lake deposit, a type not reported in the other two basins.
- Meets all the conditions required for the existence of unconformity-associated deposits similar to those found in the Athabasca and Thelon basins.
- Fertile basement, with numerous lithological units having high uranium content.
- Least explored of the three major Proterozoic basins of western Canada.
Figure shows regional setting and uranium occurrences of the Hornby Bay Basin (from Jefferson et al., 2007 - presentation given at the 2007 Open House of the Saskatchewan Geological Survey) The Hornby Bay Basin overlies the northern part of the Early Proterozoic Wopmay Orogen. It comprises rocks of the Hornby Bay and the Dismal Lakes groups, which represent Early to Middle Proterozoic successions of terrestrial and shallow marine sedimentary rocks. The basement of the basin is formed by units of the Wopmay Orogen, a north-striking orogenic belt developed on the western margin of the Archean Slave craton between about 1.97 and 1.84 Ga. From east to west, the orogen comprises the following three
main tectonic zones: Asiak Fold and Thrust Belt (passive margin shelf and slope sequences deposited on the western margin of the Slave craton, which are overlain by foredeep flysch); Hepburn Metamorphic-Plutonic Belt (represents the core zone of the orogen and comprises a rift-related sequence of immature clastic sediments and bimodal volcanic rocks, and a synorogenic suite); Great Bear Magmatic Zone (comprises volcanic and plutonic rocks formed in a magmatic arc).
During the final stage of compressional deformation, the Wopmay Orogen was extensively cut by conjugate northeast- and northwest-trending strike-slip faults. Post-orogenic extension led to dip-slip reactivation of basement conjugate wrench faults and development of north-trending normal faults in the Middle Proterozoic cover rocks.
The Dismal Lakes and Hornby Bay groups, as well as the rocks of the Wopmay Orogen that form their basement were subsequently intruded by numerous north- to northeast-trending Middle Proterozoic diabase dykes. Many of these dykes belong to the Mackenzie dyke swarm, which along with the Coppermine Creek Formation basalts that overlie the Dismal Lakes Group and the Muskox intrusion, a layered mafic-ultramafic complex emplaced along a zone of weakness at the eastern margin of the Hornby Bay Group, reflect a major
episode of continental basaltic magmatism that occurred at ca. 1270 Ma.
Exploration Plans 2010
Overview
Three components are included in the 2010 Exploration Plans: (a) high resolution seismic survey and related studies, (b) ground investigation of the targets defined by the seismic survey and the related studies and (c) drilling of targets defined by the earlier exploration.
Previous exploration effort included: airborne electromagnetic/magnetic surveys, airborne gravity survey, and ground geophysical surveys to follow-up the airborne targets, prospecting, mapping, structural analysis and drilling of the targets. The map showing the locations of the proposed seismic lines also illustrates the locations of the drill holes. A number of the drill holes did not reach the basement because of the insufficient power of the drill, others were terminated due to unfavourable drilling conditions like cave-ins and extremely fractured rocks.
The fully equipped all-weather camp at Mouse Lake accommodates 40 persons and it is supplied from Yellowknife and Kugluktuk (Coppermine). There is fuel in place at Mouse Lake that will be used for the proposed activities.
High Resolution Seismic Survey and Related Studies
The depth-to-basement computations based on airborne magnetic and gravity data implied that the depth to basement can vary considerably. Later drilling confirmed that substantial depth-tobasement changes may take place between closely placed drill holes. The proposed seismic survey will provide accurate depth-to-basement data along surveyed lines; when integrated with drill hole information, a map of basement depths can be prepared.
The importance of structures in forming uranium deposits, for example the McArthur River
Deposit of Cameco in the Athabasca Basin, is clearly evident. The structural information gathered by the seismic survey will enable to focus the exploration effort.
The locations proposed for the survey lines are illustrated on the last map; approximately 50 line km would be surveyed. The survey specifications are prepared by Dr. Zoltan Hajnal, Professor of Geophysics at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. He will also supervise the data collection and will lead the interpretation of the data. Dr. Hajnal is the pioneer of the application of high resolution seismic surveys for uranium exploration and conducted high resolution seismic surveys over the McArthur Deposit and over the Roughrider Zone of Hathor Exploration, both in the Athabasca Basin.
Lines 1, 2 and 3 would explore the centre of the Hornby Bay Basin. Line 4 is centered within the “pan-handle” part of the basin. The “pan-handle” is bordered by northeast-striking major faults on northwest and southeast. Modeling of geophysical data implied depths to basement in excess of 600m, which was confirmed by subsequent drilling. In the north of the “pan-handle”, a drill-ready target is coincident with a zone of favourable silicification. A drill hole that did not reach basement due to inadequate power of the drill equipment, encountered the same favourable alteration at depth as found in the north. Depending on timing and available funds, short lines across the “pan-handle” would be also surveyed.
The associated studies would involve the integration of the available geophysical, geological and drill hole information. This integration would provide criteria to assign priorities to the targets on hand and criteria selecting anomalous locations that require ground follow-up.
The specifications are prepared presently and proposals will be obtained by Dr. Hajnal on behalf of the Company. All inclusive initial estimated cost including the related studies is in the order of $2,000 000.
Ground Investigation
The ground investigation would include: prospecting, geological mapping, high-power
electromagnetic surveys, and audio-magnetotelluric surveys. The surveys would be used to locate airborne electromagnetic conductors. The surveys will also be used for conductors that are in favourable structural zones, and that were not detected by the earlier airborne surveys because of their greater depth than the penetration capability of the airborne systems. Survey techniques would also be tested to assess their capabilities regarding the detection of alteration zones associated with uranium deposits. The estimated costs of the investigations is between $300 000 and $ 350 000.
Drilling
The figure on the next page illustrates the location of the key target areas defined by the earlier exploration efforts. Key target areas will be the prime targets for drilling. Time and available funds will define the number holes that will be drilled. The estimated approximate all inclusive cost of drilling: $ 550/m. It is anticipated than 1 000 to 1 200 m drilling will be completed. The estimated cost is between $ 550 000 and $ 660 0000.
Estimated Total Costs
The estimated total costs including a 15% contingency is $ 3,500 000 see pdf for images to be placed with these headings:
Key Target Areas
Drill Hole Locations
Basement Holes (holes reached basement); numbers indicate basement unconformity
depths (m)
NO Basement Holes (holes did not reach basement); numbers indicate total hole
depths (m)
Proposed High Resolution Seismic Survey Lines and Drill Hole Locations with Drill Hole Numbers |
