" if you do some quick calculations on the available data , depths , thicknesses , and distances "... then they should change the project's name from Circle Valley to Chester, because it looks very much like your dog to me.
Let's consider the four new infill holes on release X-section showing the best they have to date. So what were your thoughts on the depth of higher grade geochemical anomalies assays sitting above saprock basement?
Those depth are ridiculous even before considering the strip to chase an average 8m 700ppm TREO.... "The shallow discovery and the clay are far superior than hard rock style so mining and rehabilitation will be a breeze"... are you working for the company's marketing team by chance?
Have you considered the ephemeral lakes scattered across this part of the Scadden Embayment? Water table is near surface and highly transmissive in sandy cover... good luck dewatering a 60m pit or even getting permission for it in this part of the world. There are patches of shallow basement, but these are more likely to represent ancient gnessic bluffs devoid of clays eroded of clays and exposed during the last major sea transgression to inland limits of the Scadden Embayment.
Then you need to consider what hosts the REO anomaly at depth? Traditionally (China, IXR Makutu, Uganda) ICD's are hosted in the middle clay rich part of the laterite regolith profile. REO has transported down to the basement but traditionally precipitates as colloidal minerals not ionically bonded to clay particles, which do not recover well to benign salt leaching. As many others are finding, these common deep, near basement REO's require pH=1 or even more acidic to get decent recoveries of REO to leach liquor.
Low grades, very deep with high strips, poor recoveries even with expensive sulphuric acid addition to the ammonia leach simply doesn;t make sense. If it did make sense, there are plenty of others with similar but thicker lower-saprolite REO deposits being uncovered elsewhere in Oz you may take a look at. Grades are spotty reflecting the elsewhere as here so far as I have seen, probably due to the 'nuggety' distribution of colloidal host REO minerals.
Don;t let me dissuade you, see how further results and critical met work recoveries pan out over the next 12 months, Maybe there is a sweet, shallow, thick, higher grade, ionically bonded deposit out there in an environmentally benign area just around the corner. Good luck
MEK Price at posting:
5.4¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
