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Triex Minerals Corporation
Projects Dismal Lake Project

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Hornby Bay Basin

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Mountain Lake Targets

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Dismal Lakes Geology

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Triex Minerals Corp. operates five key projects in the Paleoproterozoic Hornby Bay Basin, which straddles the Nunavut/NWT border in northern Canada. Total area of the properties is more than 223,000 hectares. These properties, Mountain Lake, Dismal Lakes, West Dismal, Kendall River and Leith Peninsula, are owned 50:50 with Pitchstone Exploration Ltd. The Mountain Lake uranium deposit, the only defined uranium resource in the basin, anchors the holdings. It is 8.2 million pounds U3O8 (3,700 tonnes U3O8) inferred resource in 1.6 million tonnes, with an average grade of 0.23 percent U3O8 using a cut-off grade of 0.10 percent U3O8 and a minimum thickness of 1.0 metre (CIM guidelines and definitions)

Latest News
  • September 17 2007 - 2007 Exploration Program Completed
  • January 30, 2007, $2.3 million budget approved for Hornby Basin for 2007
  • October 10th, 2006, Hornby Bay Basin Project Updated
  • April 26, 2006, Triex Expands Mountain Lake Holdings, Hornby Bay Basin

Location

The Dismal Lakes Property covers a significant uranium boulder train located just north of the west end of Dismal Lakes, approximately 40 km to the northwest of the Mountain Lake uranium deposit. The Mountain Lake uranium deposit is situated approximately 550 km north of Yellowknife, NWT, and 100 km southwest of the coastal community of Kugluktuk (formerly Coppermine), Nunavut.

Size

The Dismal Lakes Property consists of 27 claims totalling 21,216 hectares (52,424 acres). This claim block has been optioned from Ur-Energy and Patrician Diamonds Inc.

Ownership

The 50/50 Joint Venture with Pitchstone Exploration Ltd. has made cash payments to Ur-Energy and Patrician totaling $35,000 and must spend an aggregate $225,000 on exploration of the two claim blocks by September 22, 2006. In order to exercise either option, the Joint Venture must incur a further $500,000 in exploration on each claim block subject to such option by September 30, 2007. Ur-Energy and Patrician will retain a joint 5% NSR royalty interest in the Dismal Lakes claim block, with the Joint Venture having the right to purchase one half the retained royalty (i.e., 2.5%) for $5,000,000. The Joint Venture has an identical arrangement with Ur-Energy with respect to the 5% NSR royalty interest retained by Ur-Energy on the Mountain Lake claim block.

2007 Exploration Program

The total cost of the 2007 exploration program carried out on the collective Hornby Bay Basin projects from May to September 2007, was approximately $2.4 million. Work on the Dismal Lake property included:
  • Eleven diamond drill holes totalling 2,818 metres
  • Boulder prospecting and collection of 943 soil samples
  • An ohm Mapper survey totalling 70 line-kilometres
  • Preliminary baseline environmental studies including aquatic studies (water quality, fisheries, and hydrology), and a wildlife survey

2006 Exploration Budget

The total cost of the four week surface exploration program carried out on the collective Hornby Bay Basin projects in August, 2006, was $441,230. Work on the Dismal Lakes property included:
  • 730 line-km of airborne radiometrics (200 m line spacing)
  • 100 line-km of ground magnetics (200 m spaced lines x 25m spaced stations)
  • 400 soil samples (400 m spaced lines x 50m spaced stations)
  • 16 rock samples

All of the ground work was completed on the UR Energy ground. The airborne magnetic and electromagnetic, and radiometric survey included parts of the Patrician ground.

This work followed-up a 1250 line-km GEOTEM electromagnetic and magnetic survey at 300 metre line spacing conducted by Fugro Airborne Surveys in 2005 for UR-Energy Inc.

The main goals of the 2006 program on the Dismal Lakes property were to try and identify a source area for the boulder field discovered in this area in 1980, and to establish drill targets for 2007. The results of the 2005 and 2006 data indicate two possible bedrock source areas for the radioactive boulders within Unit 11 Sandstone, near the upper contact with overlying Unit 12 black shales. The 2005 airborne data also indicates the geology of the area is more structurally complex than initially thought.

Geology and Exploration History

The Triex -- Pitchstone Joint Venture currently controls all three of the key uranium anomalies identified in the northern part of the Hornby Bay Basin during the initial phase of reconnaissance exploration, which began in 1969. Those targets are: Mountain Lake (which includes the Mountain Lake Deposit), Dismal Lakes, and, Kendall River.

Three radioactive boulders were discovered near the west end of Dismal Lakes in 1978 and the area was staked by Esso Minerals Canada in 1979. Some 450 radioactive boulders were mapped and described over an area approximately 4 km long by 1.5 km wide during the next two years; radioactive counts ranged from 200 cps to over 15,000 cps (SPP2 scintillometer). Mineralogy is complex and includes iron and copper sulfides and cobalt and nickel arsenides.

A study in 1981 by K.G. Steele focused on glacial transport indicators for the boulder field and defined a probable source area to the east that was recommended for drilling. Average transport distance of the boulders is interpreted to be between 2.5 km and 8.1 km. Uranium exploration programs in the Hornby Bay Basin were abandoned shortly thereafter and the recommended drill program was not done.

Three diamond drill holes (WD81-1, 2, and 3) were drilled on the ice on Dismal Lakes in April 1981 (File #81429). They were drilled to test Unit 11 sandstones in the vicinity of an inferred NE fault. All three holes failed to reach bedrock and had to be abandoned at around 100 metres depth, in the thick boulder beds. All of these holes were drilled in about 24 metres of water.

Three additional holes (WD81-4, 5, and 6) were drilled to the west of the lake to test potential bedrock sources of the radioactive boulder field. WD81-4 intersected a northwest striking fault that had been inferred by a 1980 geophysical survey. It also intersected the Unit 10/11 contact. All three holes intersected thick, mature, quartzitic sandstones characterized by abundant silica cement. WD81-6 may also have intersected a fault. File #81429 states that analyses from the drill core samples had not yet been received at the time of writing.