Standard Uranium has measured up to 48,000 counts per second (cps) on outcrop at Manhattan East, part of the Corvo project in northern Saskatchewan. The historical reading for the same site topped out at 10,600 cps, meaning the current result is more than four times higher.
The measurements were taken with a handheld scintillometer during the 2026 prospecting and sampling program, which is funded by Aventis Energy and carried out by Standard Uranium. At Manhattan East, readings range from 20,000 to 48,000 cps. Two other areas also returned high results: 36,000 cps at a previously known occurrence on the Brooklyn trend and 30,000 cps at Manhattan NE, about 130 metres to the northeast. In total, 56 readings above the 300 cps anomalous threshold were recorded, eight of them exceeding 10,000 cps. The samples collected will now go to the laboratory for grade analysis.
Geological mapping confirmed deformed, hydrothermally altered basement rocks, with metasedimentary, calc-silicate and granitic lithologies. According to the company, these are conditions favourable to uranium and rare earth mineralization. Sean Hillacre, President and Head of Exploration at Standard Uranium, described the radioactivity as strong and structurally controlled, and said it ties in with the widespread enrichment encountered in the first drill campaign.
That campaign took place in the winter of 2026, the first on the project in more than forty years: 2,457 metres across ten holes, one of which was abandoned due to ground conditions. All nine completed holes intersected anomalous uranium, including a 13-metre interval above 100 ppm. Lengths are core lengths, and true thicknesses are not yet known.
Corvo covers 12,363 hectares on the eastern margin of the Athabasca Basin, the Canadian region that hosts some of the world’s richest uranium deposits. The property lies 60 kilometres east of Cameco’s McArthur River mine and 45 kilometres northeast of Atha Energy’s Gemini mineralized zone. The bedrock is covered by only thin glacial till, so the targets are shallow.
The agreement between the two companies is a three-year option signed in May 2025. Aventis can earn up to a 75% interest in the project through C$4.5 million in exploration spending and C$950,000 in combined spending and share payments. Standard Uranium, which describes itself as an Athabasca project generator, remains the operator.
The next step is geophysical. Standard Uranium is designing additional surveys to correlate outcrops, geochemistry and drill core, and to define targets for the 2027 drilling campaign. If laboratory grades confirm the readings, Corvo could move from an exploration prospect to a serious candidate for new Canadian nuclear fuel resources.
