Obviously, you can remind me of my terrible comment from my last post (link).
I suck.. |
You can get a Leapfrog viewer file here (link) to look at it in 3D-goodness.
At the moment it is early days, we have the data from 3.5 holes (hole TTD062 stopped before hitting the guts of the porphyry), so it is hard to know the full scale of the mineralization (this is me covering my ass), but the IP data may give us a hint.
I'm ignoring the mag data as it doesn't really help us (there is a huge anomaly), but the IP data may give us a potential size of the porphyry system.
and a close up...
It looks like the copper mineralization is found in a 500m long by 200-300m wide zone. From the sections, this zone dips to the SW, and may also dip to the NW (based on the fact that the Western n changeability high associated with the pyrite halo is more subdued, suggesting that it is at greater depth).
I'm also intrigued by the fact that in none of the literature do GT Gold mention any bornite, just chalcopyrite and pyrite. At another small porphyry deposits in the area we see this:
Bornite in the middle like jam in a donut |
Circle marks the spot.. |
When I look at the Saddle North Plan map (link), I noticed that a couple of the drill-holes, TTD098 and TTD107, don't appear to be optimally located. They appear to be targeting the pyrite halo and may only hit erratic, low-grade intervals (<0.25% CuEq with narrow zones of ~0.5% CuEq).
However, I'll be very interested to see what hole TTD102 gets, this could hit the bornite core and could get some decent, thick intervals of high-grade (>1% CuEq) mineralization.
I'm also interested in hole TTD106, if this gets grades similar to TTD085 (100+m @ >0.3 g/t Au and >0.3% Cu), this would be very positive as when you look at the sections, you can see that the highest grade mineralization starts at ~400m depth.
Is this potentially too deep?
Is 400 m too deep? That depends on the value of the mining blocks vs the cost to extract them...which boils down to the strip ratio. I need to look at this a bit more but I know about the area. The GJ property is adjacent and I've looked at it several times. It consists of two deposits, one mainly copper and the other mainly gold. The copper deposit is doable...grade is around 0.35 with good (>0.2 g/t but I don't recall the exact grade). The deposit sits on the side of a mountain...low strip ratio. I don't remember any bornite in the deposit.
ReplyDeleteThe gold deposit is iffy.
The project is at PEA stage.
Depending on size this may complement GJ and make it work.
The positives...powerline runs nearby and the Taltan are pro-mining, concentrate can be shipped via Stewart.
The negatives...a provincial park is nearby. Environmental restrictions - water flows into the USA.
that is why I asked the question, if some of the up-dip holes get >0.5% CuEq closer to surface, it would help with the economics rather than either going the underground route or with a massive pre-strip (as there isn't any >1% CuEq supergene enriched zone). However, if they can find more high-grade stuff, it will help.
DeleteOne of the easiest ways to improve NPV is to mine higher grade early in the mine life. Another is to steepen up the pit walls to reduce stripping, but this one has some geotechnical limitations.
DeleteThe proximity of this project to GJ has me wondering why it wasn't discovered years ago. I looked up the GJ PEA. Their copper grade is around 0.26 but the gold is considerably better at around 0.31. The gold deposit has close to a gram but it's a geotechnical mess.
Maybe if they start out mining the near-surface gold in the Saddle North and South deposits that could perhaps pay some of the surface infrastructure thereby bringing the deeper gold-copper porphyry zone into more of a brownfield vs. green and lowering the block cave hurdle grade closer to 1% CuEq. Looks like they are seeing a bit of the higher grade core in hole 93 with "intense stockworks" at the footwall so would agree they probably have not (yet) encountered classic core (with bornite jelly in the middle) vs. more structural with higher grades in quartz veins in an outer shell ("intense stockworks"). If so, the jelly core could still be hiding somewhere. Possibly more to the west-southwest as speculated, but also more at depth (perhaps below and south of hole 102, with a hole collared SW of 102 and drilled past 1000m depth targeting the bullseye). The disadvantage of a core that deep could be offset by big tonnage, good continuity and high grades.
DeleteGTT hammered on new assays today. Down 37%
ReplyDeleteOuch!!!
I'm going to do an update.
Deleteany eta on your update? Very intrigued
Delete