Hello Black Horse and pow4ade,
No, I am not less confident of the potential in this play of Mt. Alexander. I do however agree with the comments and explanations that Marxist and Basumal and others have given. I am a geologist not a geophysicist and as such not very familiar with the latest techniques or the geophysical tools are achieving. From what I read, the SAMSON instrumentation is very sophisticated and has contributed to the resolution and interpretation of the DHEM results. Some large plates have been identified, albeit in the regions of the intersected sulphide mineralisation and therefore I suspect and agree with Basumal in saying that SAMSON will enhance the DHEM signatures.
The main signature over the Cathedrals is some 200m across with an excess of 100m width. This must be considered as a very prominent anomaly by any standard irrespective whether it has been refined by the SAMSON technique or not, and I am sure when John Prineas refers to it as dazzling, I’m sure it’s not a comment for sensationalisation purposes.
From the reports that we have seen, the concentration of the work has been focussed on the geophysical aspects of the exploration. Geochemical results/assays, were a long time coming and now we have a significant amount of core which will yield lithological and more importantly structural information. All this has to be married to the geophysical results to select carefully planned drilling targets. We have not been informed of any elaboration on these methods of evaluation of results and its correlation with the geophysics. Candidly this is the only beef I have with SGQ. But, I reconcile it with the fact that they are probably thinly staffed and these things take much time and effort.
Marxist is also correct in what he says in his post # 22859528. The targets are small compared to other styles of mineralisation such as porphyry ore bodies or IOCGU type deposits like Olympic Dam. The advantage here is that the economic minerals are concentrated in smaller shapes, because the fluids or medium they are carried in is viscous, they usually travel through faults and channels or through weak lithological interfaces, and if the structure they are in dips or slopes in space, the metals being heavy, will accumulate and be thickest in the keel of the structure, more often than not in the shape of a banana lounge chair along the fractures. They tend to settle close to their source. Simultaneously, fluids and gases from the magma will also carry metals and deposit them peripheral to the magma in disseminated form (Like salt and pepper) and as stockworks (lace like distribution in interconnected fractures). I also agree that granites will not play a major role in masking sulphide responses unless these sulphide bodies are small and deposited as narrow lenses.
Because of the nature of the shape if these orebodies, the drilling approach has to be relatively closely spaced, hence the 25 m to 50 m step offs that are planned and proposed in the plan and sections in fig 1 & 2 of the last release. (I would have thought that the drill spacing could be wider but I am certain that the team of geologists and geophysicists are carrying extensive research on the available data which would suggest that this is the best approach for a second pass confirmation of the discoveries to date).
(This is a very simplistic summary of what could constitute the model of mineralisation/cells/orebodies as detected by the geophysics results to date. The next drilling programme will hopefully throw more light on this subject.
So, again we have to exercise patience and leave it to the competent team to determine what are the most favourable techniques to proceed with this exploration programme. After all exploration is dynamic and succeeding steps are predicated on progressive results.
Cheers for now,
helmenesh
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