I’ve been meaning to post this for a while and have finally got around it. As I’ve previously mentioned, MW has been the main reason I’m invested in BSM. In fact I bought my first parcel just after they signed the deal for MW. W hat initially caught my eye was the reported chip sample grades over a number of different areas within the tenement package and the large numbers of artisanal workings targeting gems present in pegmatite across the tenures. The other thing that caught my eye was the photo below wh ich shows the exposed artisanal workings/pegmatites in the Tsarafara/Ilapa area looking north - in particular, the fact that there are exposed pegmatites on the ‘valley floor’ as well as the top of the adjoining hill and artisanal workings in the side of the hill in between, which raises the possibility of multiple stacked pegmatites. The release on the 07/05/2018 mentions there are over 200 surface occurrences of pegmatites over the 10km strike length.
It has been mentioned in a number of the announcements that the pegmatites are sub-horizontal to horizontal (ie flat to shallow dipping) with the majority over 10m thick- the release of the 7/05/2018 shows a 40m exposed pegmatite. When you look at the difference in the elevations of the outcropping pegmatites it seems fairly obvious that the pegmatities are stacked. You can see an example of a pegmatite dip shown in this photo from the 20/06/18 announcement (which is at the Tsarafara prospect).
View attachment 1306682
The aerial images that have been released in announcements to date don’t do the tenement package justice in regards to the topography, in particular the elevations at which the pegmatities outcrop. I took the time to plot the tenements, prospect areas, artisanal workings and BSM sampling locations as per all MW announcements to date in Google Earth (its fairly rough as was done using visual features of the landscape). I used a similar colour scheme as the BSM releases for the mapping:
-Blue polygons for tenures;
-Green polygons for prospects;
-Red polygons for exposed pegmatites/artisanal workings (grouped into polygons due to the sheer number of individual locations)
-Blue points for samples locations
-Purple points for ‘sodalithic pegmatite occurrances’
-Blue line for soil sample lines
-Yellow point for Channel sampling location (entry of underground drive)
I have then had a good look at the areas using the 3D functionality of Google Earth and its fairly mind-blowing: in short, the pegmatites outcrop at multiple elevations all over the tenement package (which is ~2565Ha total size). This image shows the tenement package looking from north-south:
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Take the adjoining Ilapa/Tsarafara prospects for example - the lowest outcrop is at approximately 1370mRL on the valley floor, while the highest outcrop is at the top of the hill approximately 1800m to the west at around 1590RL, with additional outcrops occurring in between. A disclaimer here: I know the elevation measurement on Google Earth is not too flash in terms of accuracy at times so the RLs I am stating are all approximate.
A lot of the artisanal workings/exposed pegmatites occur in conjunction with gullies/erosion (some of the gullies/erosion was actually probably caused by historical workings in the area). You can see exposed pegmatites in a lot of the gullies running down the sides of the hills.
BSM are obviously focusing their attention on the Millies West prospect because it has the highest rock chip grade they have reported and it is also the location of the ‘small underground exploration drive’ mentioned on 7/05/2018 and shown in the photo below which I infer is where the 31m channel sample was taken from.
View attachment 1306691
The initial Phase 2 exploration drilling will happen here but I wouldn’t be surprised to then see them switch the exploration focus to the Ilapa/Tsarafara area as the topography would likely be more amenable to mining initially, all things else being equal. Its altogether possible the exposed pegmatites in the Tsarafara ‘valley floor’ area extend under the Ilapa hill so there are multiple stacked pegmatites from surface to a depth of 200+m at Ilapa.
As per the announcement of the 20/06/18, they have mapped 9 prospects across the tenement package (there are many exposed pegmatities outside of these areas also) but the current exploration activities are focusing on the northern area which features 6 of these. In the next posts I’ll do a quick run-down on each prospect in the northern area from the 3D imagery. The screenshots I’m including don’t really give the area justice so i’ll attach the kmz google earth file so people can have a play around themselves.
