The Elephant Island Fault prospects ENR drilled so far have a...

The Elephant Island Fault prospects ENR drilled so far have a few critical differences to Luni at this stage.

1. Carbs seem to occur as pinch and swell intrusions, on a large scale to be sure, but more dike than thick pipe like. None of their three prospects really hang together over strike length or thickness so far. Not just between the three prospects Hoschke, Crean and Hurley, but within them.

2. Erosion is highly variable along the fault. Most prospects are eroded down to semi-fresh carb below transported cover, so no supergene enrichment and much less probability of economic grades under transported cover. Drilling north of the fault was abandoned at 160m still in cover seds, indicating a steep down-drop north of the faulted Prot Rocks/carbs (into the blue non-magnetic area, typical of normal faulting in extensional setting). So not surprising if the Prot rocks high side south of the fault are variably and deeply eroded into valleys and basement lacking supergene laterite clays.

3. Nb enrichment can be variable obviously. ENR require Nb enriched carbs, with the supergene enriched clays preserved to supercharge grade.

Together these three variables all need to line up, or the good holes like those released today will remain encouraging but worthless... still a long way from a sure thing.

I'm also intrigued by the change in width of the carb over a geologically very short 100m depth shown in this X-section. Traditional carb pipes dont tend to come and go over 100m width and 50m like they do between the 4 holes EAL253-155...? Adds weight to the observation the carbs along Elephant Ft are pinch and swell dikes not pipes...