With the resurgence in the price of uranium Universal Uranium (UUL-V) is going back to Utah’s famed Lisbon Valley.
While the district was home to 16 uranium mines, producing over 103 million lbs of U3O8 – and accounting for 82% of all uranium produced in Utah – Universal believes there’s still plenty of ore left in the ground.
“We occupy an area most professionals in the business were well aware of for 30 to 40 years,” says Universal’s senior technical advisor, Mark Steen. “Everybody always hypothesized that there was more uranium across the fault.”
While most of the U3O8 mined in the 50s and 60s was from the western up-thrown side of the fault line — known as the Big Indian Wash — the same geological conditions exist on the down-thrown side — known as Lisbon Valley.
Steen’s knowledge of the area is intimate. His father, Charlie Steen, was responsible for igniting the first uranium boom in the district back in the early 50s with his discovery of the Mi Vida mine. Mi Vida was so rich in uranium that when it first went into production it accounted for 90% of all U3O8 pulled from the ground in the United States.
But if experts have known for so long that the eastern side of the fault was so prospective, why did it languish in relative inactivity for some 40 years?
The reasons are varied Steen says.
Most importantly the roughly 200-million-year-old sandstone formation which hosts the uranium — the chinle formation lies down in the 2,250-ft. horizon on the eastern side. A depth considered too deep back in the 50s and 60s, especially with so much U3O8 close to the surface on the western up-thrown side.
Another factor suppressing exploration was the land’s being held by a prospector with little resources to drill, but plenty of stubbornness that prevented him from cutting any deals.
Added to these mitigating factors was the collapse of the uranium market all together.
Put them all together and the result is some of the more prospective land in the area laying relatively unexplored for almost half a century.
Lisbon Valley Renaissance
In the early 90s things began to change. The prospector who had faithfully renewed his stakes on the land for some three decades, finally let them lapse, and Steen, ever watchful of the property, pounced.
When uranium went from US$7 to US$11, Steen claimed the stakes; when it went from US$14 to US$23 he brought the project Universal’s president Clive Massey; and by the time they signed a deal it was at US$28. Uranium is currently trading in the US$45 range.
“The thing to remember,” says Massey from Universal’s head office in downtown Vancouver, “Is that Mark could have staked any ground he wanted to.”
The geology A closer look
Uranium in the district was deposited on either side of a giant salt mound, known as the anti cline, which once divided two rivers.
Flooding in Triassic times brought uranium hosting volcanic ash from higher flat lands to settle on either side of the anti cline. That was some 210 million years ago and the activity helped formed the chinle.
This is evidenced by the upper portion of the chinle containing volcanic ash. It’s hypothesized that uranium leached downwards from the ash into the thick sandstone known as the Moss Back member of the chinle.
The Moss Back is the host rock and it is believed the uranium stayed in the rock because of the reducing conditions present there.
On a recent site visit by The Northern Miner, vice president of exploration Richard Dorman showed off samples from a recent reverse circulation drill program.
Dorman, points to the carbon and pyrite that drilling has hit upon as indicators of the reduction necessary for a uranium deposit to occur.
The presence of carbon and pyrite, Dorman says, indicates that not as much oxidization occurred because the environment was reduced.
A latterly occurring fault line thrust the eastern portion of the anti cline downwards and the western portion upwards.
While the big discoveries in the 50s on the western side bare the theory out, thus far only one discovery has been made on the eastern side Rio Algom’s Lisbon Mine which went into production in 1972.
Universal has completed 12 of a planned 30 reverse-circulation holes in an effort to find a second orebody on the eastern side. Assay results are pending.
Steen says the drill program did not intersect a second orebody, but that the holes show positive geological conditions. He adds that further drilling will continue to search down the flank of the anticline.
“We have to find the thicker sandstone unit, uranium is not often in the thin sandstone,” says an undeterred Steen. “If Dad would have drilled 18 feet from where he did, he would have altogether missed the orebody that became Mi Vida.”
This is because unlike many other uranium deposits, orebodies in Lisbon Valley lack a halo of lower grade U3O8.
With $4.5 million in the kitty, Universal can push ahead with drilling without diluting shares by rushing to the market for funds.
The company currently has a market capitalization of roughly $17 million with just under 32 million shares outstanding.
It also has two other projects that will absorb some of its cash this year: The Artillery Peak property in Arizona and the Labrador Central Mineral belt joint venture with Nova Scotia-based Artillery Peak is comprised of 71 claims and stretches over 6.3 sq. km. It lies 88 km northwest of Phoenix. According to Universal, 71 of 200 historical drill holes in the region hit upon strongly mineralized intercepts with an average grade of roughly 0.12%. The company is currently planning a $500,000 program for the area, and will begin drilling in the fall. Universal’s other project, Labrador Central, will be 60% owned by Universal if it spends $2 million over the next three years. With $1 million going in this year the meeting of that criteria looks likely. The properties lie along strike and in close proximity to properties held by Universal is in the process of flying airborne radiometric surveys over its 1,240 sq. km. claims. But Lisbon Valley remains the company’s primary focus, and for Mark Steen, a passion. A tour through the uranium museum in nearby Moab a dusty town that has been run in turn by Mormons, then uranium prospectors, and now extreme sport lovers tells how vital the Steen name is to the area. Most of the museum is filled with pictures of Steen’s father, Charlie, going from the tar-paper shack he rented for his family while doggedly drilling in the arid hills for uranium, to photos of the hilltop mansion and lavish parties that came after he finally struck pay dirt. Moab was a town forever changed by Charlie Steen’s unflinching belief that there was uranium here. Regrettably, Charlie Steen died earlier this year, but if Universal has its way, another Steen will usher in a new era of prestige for Moab. One fuelled by uranium, again.
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