Forum Announces Drill Results Of Highly Elevated Uranium At The Basement/Sandstone Unconformity In The Thelon Basin

18 February 2025

HIGHLIGHTS

  • First evidence of strongly clay-altered sandstone and significantly elevated geochemical pathfinders indicative of major unconformity-style uranium mineralization at the sandstone/basement contact at shallow open-pit depths from 30 to 165 metres.
  • With two basement-hosted deposits and over fifty targets identified on Forum’s property adjacent to Orano’s 127 million pound Kiggavik uranium deposit*, the Thelon Basin is emerging as a word class uranium district.
  • Elevated uranium and boron values identified at the Ayra and Loki grids that could be proximal to a uranium mineralized body:
    • AYA24-011B
      • 72.8 ppm U at 72.2 m – in sandstone
      • 323 ppm U at 115.2 m – in basement
    • AYA24-012
    • 41.1 ppm U at 77.3 m – in sandstone at unconformity
    • 260 ppm U at 77.6 m – in basement
    • 36.6 ppm U at 107.6 m – in sandstone
    • LOK24-003

Dr. Rebecca Hunter, Forum’s VP, Exploration stated, “An important part of our strategy to find a Tier One uranium deposit was testing for unconformity-contact uranium deposits at the Ned, Ayra and Loki targets.  Our results at Ayra and Loki are comparable to those over deposits in the Athabasca and the first major evidence of unconformity-type uranium mineralization processes in the sandstone. These results are exciting and could lead to a game-changing discovery with more exploration.”

UNCONFORMITY-CONTACT TARGETING

The unconformity-contact targets focused on three grids, Ned, Ayra and Loki (Figure 1; Table 1).  The objectives of these targets were to test for uranium mineralization at the Thelon Formation sandstone – basement contact as all three of these targets are overlain by sandstone.  The other targeting criteria included favourable fault zones and geophysical anomalies such as gravity, resistivity and magnetic lows.

The Ayra Grid is located along a splay of the Judge Sissons fault and a gravity low anomaly (Figure 1).  A total of 18 holes have been drilled into the Ayra anomaly originally by Cameco.  Clay alteration and weakly elevated uranium was present in the sandstone and in the basement lithologies along structures.  The Ayra Grid is partially overlain by Thelon Formation sandstone with unconformity depths ranging historically from 36 m to 85 m.  A total of four drill holes (1 lost in the overburden) were completed into the Ayra anomaly in 2024.  In these three holes, the unconformity depth ranges from 77 to 115 m and the basement units consist largely of a psammopelitic to pelitic gneiss cut by steep lamprophyre and monzogranite dykes (Figure 2).  All drill holes intersected significant clay alteration and bleaching in the overlying sandstone with uranium values as high as 72.8 ppm in AYA24-011B and up to 323 ppm U was intersected in the underlying basement associated with strong clay and hematite alteration.  AYA24-012 intersected up to 41 ppm U in the sandstone at the unconformity and the basement just below the unconformity show U values up to 260 ppm.  Elevated boron is present throughout the Ayra grid with values up to 611 ppm B in the sandstone and up to 2,090 ppm B in the underlying basement rocks.  The high uranium values suggest the area has undergone uranium mineralization processes and could be proximal to a uranium mineralized body.  Additional diamond drilling is warranted and will be a focus for drilling in 2025.