I will preface this by saying, it’s obviously a challenge to be certain on many aspects of historical work plans/details, and often you get to the point where it’s just a case of accept it for what it is and commit to re-drilling to be certain…which is exactly what DRE are doing. So that is really the only way forward.
But, that said, the long section in the announcements to show the historical intercepts and workings do bother me. As they have referenced, it is an updated version of what Prime Minerals had constructed back in 2008. Two versions show side-by-side and at the same scale:
There are some inconsistencies in pierce point locations and HoleID’s in the area around the shallow historical workings. Just for one example, I have MA17 and MA23 the other way around compared to DRE’s section. Going back to the source plans from Balde Exploration who drilled them in late 1980’s:
And then also shown again after infill by Welcome Stranger in the 1990s:
Another point of difference between the DRE version and Prime’s is MDH001 (8m @ 13.6 g/t Au), and I'd highlighted this issue in another thread earlier in the year...so in this case I think DRE are correct in removing it.
MDH001 was one of three diamond holes drilled by Westralian Nickel in the early seventies, the earliest drilling I can find reference to at the Star of Mangaroon. The location details for these are sketchy at best…but are drawn on the very detailed (and reasonably accurate) plans by Welcome Stranger (1990’s), so my guess is that if anyone was going to have them drawn correctly it’s probably them. Anyway, hole MDH001 looks more likely to be on the southern side of the main shaft (not the north as shown by prime), and probably why DRE left it off because it’s all a bit arm wavy. MDH001 reportedly intersected 5.23m @ 17.7 g/t Au (inc. 1.8m @ 33.6 g/t Au) from 90.8m downhole…which is consistent with what Welcome Stranger show on section:
So, in long section and with Prime's version for context:
Anyway, I’ve gone off track. The point is that the DRE long projection is a modified version from the one that Prime Minerals had used….which in turn was a modified version from Fox Resources.
Fox Resources drilled seven RC holes (STMRCO001 to 007) in the early 2000’s, targeting the main lode but also the projected down-plunge extensions of the shallow mineralisation. As an aside, they drilled these holes a few weeks before discovering the massive Ni-Cu sulfide zone at Radio Hill, and that was the end for them at Mangaroon.
Fox labelled the two holes with mineralisation (STMRC1 and STMRC5) on a long section, and just used dots to show the pierce points of the other five holes that were dusters…i've circled the Fox RC holes in blue below to highlight them on the poorly scanned image.
As you can see above the pierce points for the barren holes never made it onto Prime Minerals version of the section and subsequently are not shown on the DRE version either:
Now as there is significant uncertainty with ALL of these historical reports I feel if its ok to put the "good" intersections in then it should be okay to put in any “possible NSI’s”
But in any case, even if there are a few additional holes its really the DRE drilling that will be the deciding factor.
ps all the above is just IMO so please DYOR.
(20min delay)
