Anglo got diddly, it's all lag. The Rebuttal

The dismissive comments regarding the potential of Black Dragon on the other threads have enticed me to post with an opposing side of the debate, where I might not have bothered otherwise.

I think punters on board can expect at least one bonanza intercept (~100 gram metre?) if the portion of the split that went to lab is anything like what we saw in the panned tail.  So IMO, that makes entry a low risk proposition for those who like money.

But there may be more to this.

Firstly, the negative team gets all the points for outing minimalist reporting, but what of their issues raised that the gold is lag concentrated in regolith and Anglo drilled and got nothing?

1.  The gold concentrations at surface are not lag.

Gold sampled occurs in bedrock as evidenced by this specimen of gold in grey translucent quartz with iron rich phases, which is typical of epithermal style mineralisation formed at shallow depth (~1km) as opposed to surface (VRX 28/4).




All the high grade rock chip samples in outcrop / subcrop are mapped in units described as quartz haematite vein or altered schist (VRX 28/4).




It is perceivable that the old timers would have liked to have gotten in to those two veins and perhaps the reason it remained undiscovered for so long is that this area of outcrop / subcrop / float is a very small island in a large sea of cover.  Anyway a 200m circle of high grade rock chips in quartz veins and schist is a good indication for prospectivity at depth.

The geochemical signature of the rock chips is Au:Ag (1:1), and Te (VRX 28/5).  This association is more akin to bedrock epithermal mineralisation than any weathering, transported, or remnant signature at surface.

A close inspection of the crushed and panned sample from recent RC drilling (VRX 3/9) shows unstained pale silicate phases and reasonably fresh looking dark iron rich minerals.  This suggests that this very high grade intercept comes from below the base of weathering, which judging from the AC drilling appears to be about 40m in this terrain.




So the rock chips are primary and indicative of epithermal style mineralisation, but what about the host rocks, do they support this style of mineralisation?  A review of the Anglo drill logs confirms that the terrain has undergone strong metamorphism with partial melting as indicated by the prevalence of syenite.  However the drill logs also reveal intercepts of metamorphosed but still preserved quartz diorite intrusives and their extrusive equivalent, andesitic volcanics.  These rock units are the igneous signatures of magmatic arcs formed in subduction zones.  Such tectonic environments are the birth place of porphyry mineralising systems and their epithermal off-springs.  Nothing gets the gold in my veins boiling (pun intended) like an epithermal - for the reasons of potential bonanza grades, and the technical challenge.

A challenge that Anglo either dismissed (for being outside their corporate objectives) or simply overlooked.  How the ground came to be relinquished makes you wonder about the vision of their exploration staff.  But anyway VRX have come into this with fresh eyes and aside from the photo of the gold tail in the pan, perhaps the most important part of last week's announcement were these words:

"....on-site drill hole planning was flexible to deal with the expected variations in dip and strike."

This is exactly the right strategy for structurally complex narrow-veined epithermal orebodies and exactly what Anglo didn't do.  Their approach was systematic for the discovery of a bulk tonnage multi-million ounce orogenic gold deposit, i.e. another Tropicana.  So because they weren't looking for an epithermal they didn't find one........ or did they?

2.  Anglo didn't get nothing at depth in their drill results.

From Australian examples VRX have cited Kalgoorlie's Golden Mile and Pajingo as epithermal analogues, which despite the criticisms on the other threads, is a common reporting method for audiences to quickly understand the target and style of mineralisation.  If someone wants to argue that Kalgoorlie is not epithermal I'm all ears.  Anyway, as suggested by other posters, Anglo's work has sufficiently ruled out a near surface huge tonnage deposit like Kalgoorlie, but what of something like Pajingo?

Pajingo has been a good little earner for 30 years by exploitation of narrow (centimetres up to 20 metres) quartz veins hosting high grade gold.  At Pajingo, the sheet-like orebodies have very short strike, deep plunge and complex structure over many kilometres which means exploration has been rewarded by attention to detail and following your nose.  Pajingo was discovered in the 80's and initially exploited by a pit into Scott's Lode where a meagre 1m tons was processed at 9 g/t.  Over 30 years, the equivalent tonnage of about 6 months worth of ROM feed at the Golden Mile has been mined at Pajingo, and new orebodies are still being discovered by EVN right now.

So taking Pajingo (not the Golden Mile) as an analogue and applying Anglo's exploration strategy to it, we punters can speculate that Anglo might indeed have found another Pajingo.  Here's why.

Firstly, the enormous number of drill holes (over 1000) were nearly all AC and covered the whole tenement.  This program served perfectly to test bedrock below cover at around 20m - 40m.  The target would have been a big exotic geochemical signature prospective for the discovery of another Tropicana.  However, a Pajingo style body will likely give off a more subtle and contained geochem halo, and the chances of one of the holes hitting exactly on a high-grade gold bearing mineralised vein is getting close to a needle-in-haystack type situation.

However, a review of the gold assay data from AC drilling at Black Dragon reveals that 1 hole did in fact intercept 13 g/t, another 5 holes bettered 1 g/t and about another 30 or so more gave up more than 0.1 g/t.  Those results would seem entirely compatible with a potential occurrence of epithermal mineralisation in bedrock being tested under cover by broad scale grid AC drilling.

The negative team would have you believe that the bedrock was then drilled to depth and returned no useful results. At Black Dragon there were 21 RC holes drilled.  Remember this was grid / fence drilling, not necessarily appropriate for applying the science to hone in on narrow vein systems as VRX are now doing.  Among the 21 holes that Anglo drilled, for gold we have in 4 holes 13.4 g/t at 148m,   4.26 g/t at 148m, 3.98 g/t at 103m, 2.48 g/t at 80m, another 5 holes than bettered 1 g/t and only 3 of the 21 got no assay higher than 0.1 g/t.  These results would confirm that the bedrock has high prospectivity to host epithermal gold.

Looking at the drill logs, for observations around those gold bearing intercepts in RC chips we have the following notes (excuse caps, direct cut and paste):

"SILICA ALTERATON IN SYENITE HOST, AND GREY QUARTZ VEINS. NUMEROUS VUGS IN VEINS AND HOST. DISSEMINATED PYRITE CLUSTERS"

"KSPAR PORH ~1CM REMAIN INTACT, SOME NARROW ZONES WITH DISS PYRITE POTENTIAL MIN"

"LARGE RED KSPAR PORH ~1CM REMAIN INTACT SIMILAR TO TROPO STYLE ALT,  SOME NARROW ZONES WITH DISS PYRITE POTENTIAL MIN"

"VEIN, DOMINATED BY DARK GREY SOFT MATRIX, WITH SULPH, AND KSPAR VEINS, HALOED BY CHLORITE SCHIST"

""HIGHLY ALT ZONE AROUND QTZ "

""LATE H ALT, STRONG STAINING OF MAFIC ZONES CHL-EP ALT, SYENITIC UNITS"

""HIGHLY ALT, DARK GREY, SOFT, 2% DISS ?DOLOMITE/ANKERITE-CHLORITE-PYRITE"

and  very frequent observations of silicate, sericite, chlorite, and epidote alteration assemblages and also silicate and carbonate veins.

So those log notes probably read like mumbo jumbo to some, but those who can talk the talk and then post here that Anglo found nothing in deeper holes, may consider to revise that to suggest that Anglo discovered strong and pervasive alteration indicators for epithermal mineralisation.

So now that VRX have a hold of this project and we know what they know, and we know that they will explore for an epithermal gold deposit rather than an orogenic gold deposit, what can we expect?  In the very near future we are likely to get at least 1 exciting assay and hopefully another few holes showing strong indication for gold and epithermal mineralisation.  Beyond that, we may find that they can establish a small resource at surface for a potential open cut, and with all stars aligning, ongoing work may discover a series of vein sheets at depth like Pajingo.  Who knows, but the suggestion of nothing, zip, nada - is not very likely, IMO.  Also the neighbours may want to review their programs for potential porphyry and epithermal mineralisation as these deposits tend to cluster along tectonic belts.

So I'm hoping for this story to come good and be told well, which should then reward punters. The first chapter on assays from recent RC drilling looks promising.  I think the upside potential is appreciable, and downside negligible.  The last time I was in a play where someone who could talk the talk was telling punters we were all muppets, the company drilled a director's special into an EM anomaly and pulled up a fat blob with 3% Ni.  The stock 3 bagged in a day on that.  It could be a repetitive formula.

So, I'll go and cook a late night curry, and hand it back over to the negative team.....