Brazil Resources said that it had received permission from the Alberta Department of the Environment in Canada for drilling in the Western portion of the uranium-rich Athabasca Basin in what is being called the Rea uranium project.
The area covered in the permit is believed to be under-explored. About 20 percent of the world’s uranium supply currently comes from the region, which is in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Brazil Resources was awarded the permit along with Areva, which is a partner in the project.
The Rea project is one of the largest land holdings in the western Athabasca Basin, measuring 1,253 square kilometers. Brazil Resources owns 75 percent of the tract. Areva Resources Canada owns 25 percent.
The tract encompasses Areva’s Maybelle River project, which covers the north-northwest striking Maybelle River Shear Zone.
The high priority target is called the North Zone, which has received seven drill holes, which tested the Maybelle River Shear Zone over a strike distance of approximately 3 kilometers. Several of these holes “intersected with fault breccias in the overlying Athabasca Basin sedimentary rocks along with several other elements (copper, lead, nickel, arsenic, boron and vanadium), that are indicative of “unconformity-type uranium deposits,” the company said.
A fault breccia is a rock type that consists of angular, brittle rock created by tectonic forces.
Recent high-grade uranium discoveries located along a regional shear-zone in the Patterson Lake area of the basin also highlights the potential for large shear zones, such as the Maybelle River Shear Zone, host to several deposits in addition to the known Maybelle River deposit, Brazil Resources said in a statement.
The basin is considered one of the most important uranium-producing district in the world, says the company on its Web site. It accounted for about 15 percent of the world's production in 2012, having, to date, yielded 1.5 billion pounds of U308.