Hello Pockets and Trapper,
Thank you for your sentiments. Pockets, your comments re lack of thick intersections are true but as I said before you understood fully the implications of the expanded gist of what is going on. To elaborate a little, we have to take into consideration the reasons why the meaty stuff – such as thick intersections have been of a trickling nature. In my opinion it is a result of lack of
1 availability of suitable equipment due to the high level of exploration activity in W.A. and other states of Australia, but principally in W.A. Companies like RIO commandeer something like six plus rigs at a time to drill some of their prospects. I am pretty sure John and the team cannot locate suitable drilling equipment to accommodate what would be hard lithologies to drill. As a consequence, SGQ is stuck with one rig only at the moment.
2 I imagine, there would be substantial delays with laboratory processing. Turnaround times for assays take weeks instead of days. This causes for time delays in preparing for follow up planning from assay results, core preparation and logging and computer modelling of results.
3 Ground geophysical surveys take significant time planning and execution in the field, due to many protocols, availability of crews, competition for survey times weather and other field activity interference etc. Then there is the interpretation process of results and ultimately the verification via drilling. But remember, we only have one rig and a diamond rig at that which is not a fast procedure in hard terranes, which I imagine that part of the Yilgarn is.
4 Whilst all contractors are highly skilled and highly professional, there is just so much they can do in 24 hours.
5 We have had phenomenal success with our drilling, remembering that even if there is no massive mineralisation in the occasional hole, there is always – with very few exceptions where we went straight into granites - some evidence of sulphides, or the intersection of a mafic or ultramafic host with probably no sulphides. And it appears that the deeper ones are becoming thicker.
Despite the few points I outlined above, I think the progress of exploration so far has been excellent. whilst we have said it many times before, all this spells patience, unfortunately it is the necessity with these sorts of programmes and the limited funds that have to be properly managed.Before I end this, I shall also point out a couple of paragraphs or so from today’s release that demonstrate that it does contain substance, extreme substance at that, and opens up for the necessity for the understanding of structural geology, the understanding of the limitations of geophysical techniques and the preparation for the application of untried techniques which could define drilling targets much more accurately.
Seismic Survey:As part of the escalation of geophysical surveysacross the Cathedrals Belt, the first-ever seismic survey at the Belt is beingdesigned.
And, of particular importance, this paragraph which vindicates the discussions we have had in previous posts on the theories regarding the source, structural controls and accumulation of mineralisation of the intruding ultramafic pile.The purpose of the seismic survey will be to map thestructures through which the mafic-ultramafic intrusions hosting nickel-coppersulphides have passed upwards from the Earth’s mantle, and to detect anysignificant mineralisation accumulated at depth within these structures.
John Prineas, St George Mining’s Executive Chairman,said: “Our systematic exploration programmes continue to successfully scope outthe scale of the large mineral system at the Cathedrals Belt.
“The soilsurvey results at Fish Hook are very encouraging because they have identified anew anomalous trend 5km east of the known nickel-copper mineralisation at theCathedrals Belt. This is an area that we believe is prospective for a Greenfieldsdiscovery.
“We are also pleased to be rolling out a new movingloop EM survey at Fish Hook and other unexplored areas of the Cathedrals Beltwhere there is strong potential to generate more EM targets for drill testing.
“The seismic survey is another exciting initiativewith the potential to deliver an exploration breakthrough that could assist usto better understand the controls and distribution of the high-grademineralisation along the Belt.”
I really believe that this Cathedrals range project will throw up some significant sized orebodies and that despite the many constraints management is experiencing, to me they are the right group to do it. It would have been nice to have $30 or $40 mill in the kitty to really hit this plethora of anomalies and the anomalies that are yet to be identified.Clearly this vision will take some time and professionalism and, in my opinion, this management is the right group to do it. I sincerely wish for them a very successful journey as well as to the both of you gentlemen.
Cheers,Helmenesh
