With subvertical tabular orebodies - no-one ever deliberately drills down dip/down plunge in the early stages of exploration except by accident in early discovery. As
@Midnight26 and others pointed out earlier - once AMG had put a few exploration holes in they should have realised that they were drilling down-dip or down-plunge and changed drill orientation to test perpendicular to the edges of the orebody, thats the only way to determine the dip, true width, depth extent and strike of the potential orebody.
In early exploration the name of the game is identification of the orebody in 3 dimensions, strike length, depth extent and true width. Those early AMG holes can't determine the boundaries of the orebody because almost all the drillhole is entirely inside the orebody", and they cant determine the strike length because the hole and samples are "inside the ore body" and they cant determine the true width because they are all "inside the orebody" and have not determined the edges of the orebody. For all we know the ore body could be a steeply dipping/plunging pipe like shape and hole 17TRRC007 has been drilled right down the guts of this pipe like shaped orebody. Thats why all explorers drill along strike first, and then down dip in an orientation perpendicular to the orientation of the ore body.
The edges of the orebody in early exploration are the key thing to determine, no edges or limits = no volume and Volume = tonnes so if your drilling can only determine grade and not volume and tonnes, then zero tonnes at 2% copper is the same result at zero tonnes at 10% copper. Its grade information on an undetermined volume of ore and almost worthless without a shape, volume and tonnage.
View attachment 2496833Have a look at the included cross section and tell me which orientation of drilling would establish the true thickness, position and depth of the orebody at the Trump? The dashed black lines or the existing AMG holes on that section?
What has happened at the Trump is that the company has recognised that they are probably drilling down dip/down plunge and have adjusted their drill hole orientation in future drilling to get a better idea about the geology and the geometry, thickness, strike length and depth of the potential orebody.
Thank you for pointing out MEI - below is a pic from their latest drilling announcement (and their ore body is different to Trump because they have a lot more drilling info) and its a plunging anticline fold shape. Look at their drilling orientation pattern near the pit, and then further at depth as the orebody and Trachyte plunges, do we see any holes drilling down dip entirely inside the orebody as shown in blue? Or do we see holes trying to be as perpendicular as possible to the edges of the orebody? (within the limits of what they can drill from surface).
View attachment 2496836The only stage explorers need to drill down dip in a sub vertical orebody is to get a large metallurgical sample to do test work on, and by then they are on the way from exploration to resource confirmatory drilling. Not even geo-technical investigation holes should do this, unless you plan on sinking a shaft or putting a decline in within the ore body - which isn't standard practice.
If you still don't believe that drilling perpendicular to the orebody is normal exploration and resource drilling standard practise then have a look at the 3D shapes of Mt Freda and the most common orientation of the drilling there.
View attachment 2496851Yep - mostly perpendicular to the Mt Freda orebody.
As a matter of fact - the recent drilling announced for the Trump area seems to imply that AMG may have indeed turned the rig around 180 degrees and are now drill testing perpendicular to the strike and dip of the potential orebody, something that nearly everyone on Hotcopper recognised in the early drill announcements, as shown up-thread in various peoples comments.
