Mus will not require anything like $10 to $20m to continue...

Mus will not require anything like $10 to $20m to continue production with bulk samples. Alluvial gravity plants are relatively cheap to build and operate. They have enough plant capacity already to move ahead and adding extra volume is not hard. The gravels are shallow enough in soft free dig ground so it does not need extra heavy or high quality earth moving equipment. Lots of cheaper second hand gear can handle it.

More interesting in the last report are the cross sections through their test pits around Alpha. The gravel and other horizons slope gently downwards to the South West away from the pits in the cleared area. The best gravels can be expected in the thalweg (the line lower central part of an alluvial drainage) whereas they are currently test pitting the NE bank area at Alpha. Its remarkable that they recovered as many rubies as they did given mining appears to be in the lower grade fringe areas. Notable they have now found some new ruby producing pits as well and they are probably off thalweg too as it takes time to locate it.

MUS should also do some low cost soil geochemistry and lines of ground magnetics looking for amphibolite horizons where primary rubies in host amphibolite are likely to exist as occurs in GEMs ground. A zone of primary ruby in amphibolite would provide much open pit upside even though their average grades would be lower offset by high carat rates per tonne returns - judging from GEM's images.

The tonnage resource of ore would be much greater than the alluvials alone. Relatively soft weathered amphibolite under attrition should release rubies quite well.