I can offer a explanation here. To preface what I am about to...

I can offer a explanation here. To preface what I am about to say when I realized what they are doing I though their strategy to be absolutely brilliant.

If you read the announcement from the 8th carefully you realize that a) they hit something encouraging in the hole that made them drill deeper, b) that they realized that the post-mineral cover does not include the bulldog shale and c) that they will use the 1200 to drill the pre-collars for all holes first.

One of the challenges of IOCG exploration is that without very tight gravity coverage you end up drilling many holes to find the mineralised portions (if they even exist) in what are otherwise vast expanses of iron alteration. There are countless examples of various companies 'bump hunting" in the Olympic Cu-Au province only to turn up hematite or magnetite with trace sulphides. Most gravity anomalies that one might drill in the area have shown to be the product of iron alteration. So if you are faced with the challenge of expensive drilling guided by mag and gravity what you want to do is use methods that provide direct detection of sulphide such as IP or EM.

The Bulldog shale is important here as it acts as an effective barrier to electrical geophysics. Signal runs down and gets attenuated to nothing. Hence, if its absent you can use IP and EM to target.

So if you want to run a cost effective exploration campaign looking for IOCG's you do the following.

1) Collect additional mag and gravity data over your targets to refine the strongest part of both. DONE
2) You drill a hole confirming both the absence of the Bulldog shale and that the anomaly is indeed caused by a hydrothermal iron alteration. DONE (maybe)
3) You follow up with electrical geophysics to locate the sulphides to push a hole through the guts of what carries the strongest metal concentrations. TO DO
4) Repeat for all targets, test adequately, hopefully make a discovery. TO DO

DeMetallica clearly hit a IOCG system at Wills but do not have the option of running IP or EM so whoever goes back to drill more holes to find a orebody has to do it more or less blind.

I had the pleasure of meeting Rudy Gomez a few years ago and got the explanation of how Carrpateena was discovered and how IP lit it up like a Christmas tree. Outlined here: https://www.aseg.org.au/sites/default/files/2013_Uncover_Vella_L.pdf

Here is what Carra's IP looked like:


Will they find something. Maybe, but they sure as hell are doing everything right as far as I'm concerned.

All IMHO and DYOR,

Cheers,
CC