Hi all,
I thought I'd start a new thread for the geological discussion so that I don't clog up the other feeds with my maps, images and ramblings. It will also serve as a good "one-stop-shop" reference for any newcomers who want to take a look at the geology of the prospect.
Today I found out the Google Earth Pro is now free (used to be something like $400/yr). It has a cool feature I wish I'd had on the regular version, and that is the ability to "drape" images over the terrain.
So I grabbed one of the geological maps out of one of the reports, fiddled around a bit and overlaid it on the deposit in google earth.
I'd long had the suspicion that the host geology might be having a significant impact on where we are finding these mineralised siliceous "lithocaps". Well, I now have some strong evidence that this may indeed be true.
Check out the image below. What I've noticed is that the surface mineralisation
only occurs in the Andesite terrain. The most stark example of this is the difference in results (both drilling and soil sampling) between the MdP and San Simon prospect.
You'll notice an almost northerly trending fault separates the Andesite and Dacite terrains. To the west we have the highly mineralised MdP, and on the eastern side the relatively barren (at least at surface) San Simon area. Both are mapped as being a silica ridge, and the satellite image appears to confirm the mapping.
View attachment 142401
And taking a closer look:
View attachment 142403
Now, I'm not going to pretend like I'm an expert with this kind of geochemistry, but it's likely there is some physical and/or geochemical property in the andesite relative to the dacite that allowed or promoted the precipitation of silver (and gold, by the looks).
Another piece of supporting evidence, is that if we take a step back and look at the whole tenement and where the historical artisinal mining operations are located, all but one are found to be hosted in the andesite. Even the one exception is located right on a fault boundary between the terrains.
View attachment 142430
This is mainly relevant as far as where to expect "at surface", siliceous litho-cap mineralisation, but I'm sure it's something the company has already looked at.
Keenly anticipating more soil sampling - will be interesting if they release some from the MdPT ridge - seems like they are intentionally holding back for some reason...
(20min delay)