Pioneer renews efforts at Riou Lake property

Follow-up electromagnetic surveys are under way at the Riou Lake uranium project in the Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan.

Pioneer Metals (PSM-T) says the surveys, comprising 140 line km, are designed to pinpoint drill targets in an area with favourable geology and to test for new basement conductors and fault structures. Holes 7 and 8, drilled last winter, intersected reverse faults and graphitic metapelites at the unconformable contact between basement rocks and overlying sediments; both are definitive characteristics of known deposits in the basin.

Also, a 5-hole, 3,500-metre drill program will begin shortly. Four of the holes will be sunk in geophysical anomalies south of Riou Lake, whereas the fifth will target a pelitic corridor in basement rocks that underlie radioactive springs discovered during the summer.

Cameco (CCO-T) is funding the program as part of its requirements to earn a 60% stake in the project. The company is required to spend $6.5 million on exploration over five years.