Dark art / bad science

After months of turmoil for company and shareholders MRD announced today, an EM anomaly on hole 16 that was originally drilled to target an AMT anomaly.  The news created a 70% spike in share price.

It is described:



And plotted:




In  the appendix of the report we find the hole has no appreciable base metal concentrations:


In previous news they reported on the AMT anomaly target:



And the intersection:



So we can establish they "discovered" and modelled a 15x15m anomaly 10m off-hole from an interval that contains weakly to moderately disseminated sulphides, predominantly pyrrhotite, 160m above the footwall contact.  Furthermore the off-hole EM anomaly is 130m above the target zone for the AMT anomaly and would likely be too small and too distal to explain the AMT anomaly.

So to further substantiate their claim of an anomaly (and the basis of a 70% price spike), we can look at the plots.  A cursory glance would indicate a response in accordance with an anomaly as described, however IMO, a closer inspection would reveal otherwise.

MRD report profiles for 3 axes, below which is a portion of the plot for the z axis with late time channels 46, 47, and 48, (and a red X in blue circle drawn by me):



What we are looking for in the z component is consistent anomalous response from background in the late time channels, and we can clearly see that in the 3 lines (orange above yellow above orange) starting from the red X in the blue circle.  The signature shown in those 3 lines is indicative of a nearby off-hole conductor.  However, it has come to my attention, that these lines are likely not real data, but an artificially modelled response for the z component for the conductor they describe.  The display of the real data has been omitted for most of the downhole length, but constitutes the 2 blue and the other yellow line.

Even though we only see a small fraction of the channels of real data for an isolated 100m segment of the profile, there is sufficient detail to decide (IMO) that there is no consistent and anomalous response in accordance with the modelled profile.  Each individual channel shows high variability across the whole section, and none of the three late time channels coincide for peaks and troughs.  IMO, this is not the response of an off-hole DHEM anomaly and the same can be found when the profiles for the x and y components are scrutinised.

No where is there any discussion that the plots show real data overlain with modelled data.  I call their bluff.  I highly doubt they will drill this, and IMO, if they do they will not intercept any massive sulphides at the DHEM off-hole target they describe.  Rather, I think the company should direct their efforts on refocusing, which would include strong consideration on how they go about reporting in the future.