Gifted junior targets uranium in Yukon

Copper Ridge Explorations Inc., owner of various precious and base metals-rich properties in the Yukon Territory, British Columbia and Alaska, is venturing into uranium exploration in the Yukon.

The Vancouver, B.C.-based junior mining company reached an agreement with Dawson City prospector Shawn Ryan to acquire 100 percent interest in the Borealis uranium property about 30 miles northeast of that city.

Under terms of the option, Copper Ridge will pay $5,000 in cash, spend a minimum of $600,000 on exploration at Borealis, issue 800,000 shares of common stock and grant 100,000 nontransferable share purchase warrants over a four-year period. Ryan will retain a 1.5 percent net smelter royalty, half of which, or 0.75 percent NSR, Copper Ridge can purchase for $1 million.

The Borealis property covers nearly 600,000 acres of the Deadman Stock, a mid-Cretaceous multiphase granitic unit of the Tombstone Suite intrusive complex. Uranium mineralization is associated with a late-stage phase of syenite dykes within the stock and occurs as structurally controlled lenses of pitchblende and as disseminations of uraninite within the syenite.

Discovery was in 1970s

The property was discovered in the 1970s by Chevron following a program of reconnaissance airborne surveying and stream sediment sampling. Follow-up prospecting discovered several areas of float and outcrop in the stock with significant uranium mineralization. In one area, 24 samples taken from a 10-by-60-meter talus train returned values, ranging from 38 to 4,200 parts per million uranium and averaging 2,100 ppm U, 0.21 percent. A sample of angular float from another area returned a value of 9.7 percent U3O8.

In 1977, Chevron completed a program of soil sampling, blast pit trenching and diamond drilling. The soil sampling successfully defined several areas of anomalous uranium mineralization that were followed-up with 24 blast pit trenches. The trenching returned intervals of local mineralization grading up to 0.55 percent U over 1 meter. The drilling program consisted of 225 meters of small diameter core from 6 holes but was completed before the results of the soil sampling and trenching programs were received. The best result from the drilling was 0.14 percent U over 0.6 m.

Copper Ridge officials say good potential exists on the Borealis property for the discovery of both vein-hosted, high-grade uranium mineralization and bulk tonnage, lower-grade mineralization. An example of the latter is the Rossing mine in Namibia, currently one of the largest producing uranium mines in the world. The Rossing mine has a reserve of 28.4 million tonnes, grading 0.04 percent U and a resource of 561 million tonnes of 0.03 percent U.

Multi-parameter high-resolution survey this spring

As soon as weather conditions permit in the spring of 2007, the company plans to fly a multi-parameter high-resolution airborne geophysical survey over the property. The results of this survey will be used to guide a follow-up program of mapping, prospecting, soil sampling and trenching in order to define targets for drill testing.

Mike Burke, a Yukon geologist, said Copper Ridge is known as a good exploration company and the provincial government is delighted that Ryan succeeded in attracting the company's interest to the Borealis prospect.

Copper Ridge is the successor company to La Teko Resources Ltd., which discovered the True North gold deposit in Alaska in the 1990s, Burke said.

Led by longtime economic geologist Gerald G. "Gerry" Carlson, the company's exploration philosophy focuses on grassroots mineral exploration, where the entry cost is low but the potential reward can be very high and success will be contingent on exploration skill and on carefully managed risk.

Copper Ridge recently entered a property-option agreement with Lomiko Resources Inc. in which it may acquire up to 60 percent interest in the Joss'alun copper property about 47 miles southeast of Atlin, B.C. Joss'alun is a high-grade copper massive sulphide discovery made by the B.C. Geological Survey and acquired by Copper Ridge in 2002.

Favorable results from several properties

Copper Ridge also reported favorable results from a busy 2006 exploration season at several other properties in the Yukon and British Columbia. Among them:

* The Copper Ace copper-molybdenum porphyry prospect, which is adjacent to the Gibraltar Mine in central British Columbia. The target at Copper Ace South is coincident IP chargeability and copper in soil geochemistry anomalies that lie within favorable "Mine Series" rocks along strike from the trend of open pits currently in production at Gibraltar. The Copper Ace South drill target area is less than 500 meters from the northern edge of the Gibraltar North deposit, a more recent discovery on the Gibraltar property that is not yet in production.

Taseko Mines Limited has recently announced a 25 percent mill expansion to 46,000 tonnes per day for the Gibraltar Mine, which will see annual production rates increased to 100 million pounds of copper. Taseko has also announced the potential for additional, higher grade reserves as a result of a successful exploration drilling program beneath and along strike from current reserves and open pits.

• The Lucky Joe project, about 25 miles south of Dawson City. The target at Lucky Joe is a metamorphosed porphyry deposit, or possibly a variety of IOCG (iron oxide copper-gold) deposit as defined by two large copper and gold soil geochemical anomalies.

• The Yukon Olympic iron oxide copper-gold project, on the Dempster Highway, 80 miles north of Dawson City. The target at Yukon Olympic is an Olympic Dam-type IOCG style deposit. The Olympic Dam deposit in Australia (3.8 billion tonnes at 1.1 percent copper, 0.4 kg/t uranium (U3O8) and 0.5 g/t gold) is characterized by a large magnetic anomaly flanked by a gravity anomaly that is caused by the iron-rich breccia body. The Yukon Olympic property occurs in a geological setting that is similar to Olympic Dam, occurring in host rocks of similar age and with mineralization and alteration that is of a similar age and character.

• The Scheelite Dome gold property in the Tintina Gold Province, about 22 miles northwest of the town of Mayo, Yukon. Road-accessible Scheelite Dome covers about 340,000 acres and is recognized as one of the largest intrusion-related gold systems in the Yukon. It occurs in a geological setting that is similar to that of Alaska's Pogo deposit (7 million tonnes of 16.12 grams per ton gold) and Donlin Creek deposit (215 million tonnes of 2.4 g/t gold).