South Dakota

In South Dakota, Fischer-Watt controls the Long, RC, and DH properties, totaling 51 claims (1,000 acres) located approximately eight miles north of the town of Edgemont in the southern Black Hills district. The claims were previously held by Union Carbide and the Tennessee Valley Authority as part of a larger block known as the Chord property which lies within the Long Mountain structural zone. It includes more than 40 small open pits as well as a few underground operations that produced uranium intermittently in the 1950s and 1960s.

As in Wyoming, uranium mineralization in western South Dakota is found primarily in “roll fronts”, crescent-shaped deposits formed in saturated, permeable sandstones. Groundwater carrying dissolved uranium and other metals such as iron, molybdenum, vanadium, and selenium flows through these host rocks. The metals precipitate when the groundwater flow crosses the interface from oxidized conditions into reducing conditions in the sandstone, accumulating in the crescent-shaped forms. This deposit style is often amenable to low-cost and environmentally-friendly In-Situ Recovery (“ISR”) methods where uranium is dissolved out of the rock with leachwater injected into the formation through a series of wells.

The 33-claim Long property encompasses a 3-mile long by 1-mile wide mineralized trend that includes claims covering the historic Viking, Virginia C, and Ridge Runner ore bodies which were previously controlled by Strathmore Minerals. The U.S. Forest Service has made a proposal to withdraw certain lands in the Craven Canyon and Long Mountain area that would withhold entry to some of these claims.

Approximately one mile east of the Long claims is the 8-claim RC property which contains two areas of possible uranium mineralization as well as the Hot Point mineralized area.

The 10-claim DH claim block covers about 200 acres in an area one mile south of the RC property. In 1971, the U.S. Geological Survey reported “widespread low grade mineralization” in an area that included the DH property. Historic production from DH occurred from several small pits and at least two small underground operations where the reported average grade was 0.25-percent U3O8 and 0.30-percent vanadium oxide.