Uranium prompts staking activity.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Pele Mountain Resources Inc. investing uranium exploration

The one-time 'Uranium Capital of the World' may never regain its title again, but a frenzy of staking activity and some advanced exploration by junior miners in Elliot Lake has led many to wonder if the historic mining camp may be making a comeback.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The action is fast and furious for Pele Mountain Resources, near some former operating mines just east of town.

Their spring announcement of a high-grade uranium discovery has prompted the Wawa-diamond explorer to spin off its Elliot Lake project into its own corporate entity.

Elliot Lake is our main focus right now," says president and CEO Al Shefsky.

Armed with $5.5 million exploration budget, the company is gearing up for a very active program this summer with follow-up drilling. They're testing some high-priority targets after intersecting some rich uranium mineralization following a recent 22-hole drill campaign.

Shefsky walked into an almost ready-made mining property thanks to surging global uranium prices.

With Rio Algom's catalogue of drill data from the late 1970s and the technical know-how of some Elliot Lake mining veterans, Shefsky's team intends to be 'first to market' with a "world class" uranium mine.

Though his Elliot Lake project is not nearly as high grade as Saskatchewan's white-hot Athabaska Basin, the grades are decent enough with world uranium prices up 57 per cent since the beginning of 2007.

Prices for uranium had risen to $113 US-per pound by April, the largest single increase in record, since price monitoring began in 1968.

Pele is moving quickly with a mine planning study under the supervision of consultants Scott Wilson RPA.

Shefsky is very bullish about the their high-grade findings in a basal conglomerate bed 15 metres below a main conglomerate bed (sedimentary rock of pebbles solidified into solid rock).

Among their best intercepts were 0.218 per cent uranium oxide (U308) over a core length of 1.26 metres and 0.572 per cent over 0.32 metres.

These latest assays, Shefsky says, "adds a whole new dimensional to theproject" with uranium that is "uncharacteristically higher grade," and in some cases up to 10 times higher, than what's been found near surface.

"This deposit outcrops for six kilometres along the strike, comes near surface and dips down.

"So we added more ground down at that end to increase the size and cover the ground where (the mineralization) is going."

Pele expanded its exploration footprint, adding five mining claims comprising...