This release only contained the assays from holes 30 and 33, but the text pf the PR told us that that holes 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32 essentially hit nothing.
Remember:
- drilling for stratigraphy/geology/ = we hit nothing
- Testing the shape of the host rock/intrusion = we're not sure what is going on
- collecting (in)valuable information = we're not sure what is going on
You can get the 3D model from here (link).
Here is a plan map showing where the various holes are located.
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| Most of the holes are in the NW corner, the area where Ni mineralization was first found by Silver Standard in the 1960s. |
It would have been nice to for Garibaldi to share with us the rest of the 2018 drill results, but they are still, errm, studying them.
It's only been 3-4 months, but I'm sure people will be happy to wait a few more weeks.....So, without further ado, let's go through the holes:
Note: I'm going to ignore holes (25, 26, 28, 29, and 32) drilled outside of the areas of known mineralization, as they essentially hit nothing. I was intrigued by Hole 29, that drilled one of the famous VTEM anomalies that Garibaldi had been squawking about for the last couple of years, but they hit nothing. The other reason is, we're not given any real info (e.g. maps or sections), probably because Silver Standard didn't do any work in those areas in the 1960s, about each hole, just a short descriptive paragraph.
Hole 27
This was designed to test the continuation of the NW Zone. The hole hit nothing, even though it came within ~20m of the massive sulfides hit in hole EL-17-08
We're told that it was an important hole "to help map out the extent and shape of the Intrusive complex". This is company BS-speak to save face, the hole as designed to hit the NW sulfide zone, but
Hole 30
This hole did actually get some mineralization. It hit 3 separate zones of Ni-Cu mineralization.
A zone at surface, which amazingly wasn't seen in hole 33 that was drilled literally centimeters (25 to be exact) from hole 30.
Mineralization, Consistent? Not!
However, it wasn't all doom and gloom. The hole hit a nice massive sulfide zone at 73m depth.
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| Some nice grade smearing.... |
Hole 31
This was drilled to explore for the eastern continuation of the Discovery Zone. The hole was drilled just 40m away from holes EL-17-10 and EL-18-16 that both hit 9-10m of massive sulfides grading >7% Ni, but hole 31 hit nothing, not even a skid-mark. This shows how discrete the mineralization is.
Hole 33
The 'good' hole. This as drilled to explore for the northern continuation of the massive sulfide zone lower discovery zone.
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| 50% of the Nickel in just 10% of the mineralized interval |
When we look at the various sections we see that Hazelton group occurs as small, irregular pendants and blocks within the large Nickel Mountain Gabbro complex. Through all of this we have the sub-vertical E&L intrusion emplaced.
We can clearly see that the mineralization occurs at the contact between the E&L Intrusion and the Hazelton group, i.e.
E&L Intrusion + Hazelton Group = Nickel Mineralization
E&L Intrusion w/o Hazelton group = No Nickel Mineralization
I still think this is because the Hazelton group is contains Sulfur in the form of pyrite (hole 29 supports this). The E&L intrusion is Nickel rich, but sulfur poor and therefore can't precipitate Ni in the form of Pentlandite (an Iron Nickel Sulfide - formula ~FeNiS).
So we have, highly irregular contact between two small rock units that have formed a few small, high-grade irregular pods. Not exactly a geological situation that lends itself to forming a large deposit.
I see crow dinner coming for you dear.
ReplyDeleteI prefer 4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie
DeleteTasty tasty crow
ReplyDeleteHow was the presentation at the PDAC, did they publish the rest of the results?
DeleteLooks like that borehole technology really working!! And the VTEM as well!! A three year old could have picked better locations than this. Terrible terrible terrible results. how this thing still has a 130MM market cap is beyond me.
ReplyDeleteI used to have something similar to respect for you, but that’s completely gone. You have proven yourself to be an arrogant mental misfit who should not have access to the internet. “massive grade smearing” you declare? You are a clueless person masquerading as an expert, if that is your opinion.
ReplyDeleteGrade smearing is the result of averaging high grade intervals over broader sections which include waste rock. Using your own screen captures, the residual grades have values of $142.84 and $127.49, the lesser of which is almost precisely equivalent to 3 g/t gold. On what planet would those be waste rock? AND you’ve completely ignored the contained cobalt and four precious metals values, which would surely make that “waste” even more valuable.
Do yourself a favour and find another company to bash. Your adolescent attempts to diminish the Garibaldi story have revealed that you are nothing but a “never going to get a real job in the industry” hack. I don’t know what it will take for you to recognize the importance of the disseminated mineralization here, but maybe this post will push you to begin the process.
Thank you for your opinion, I'm not an expert, I'm just trying to present the data I see and express an opinion, which, differs from yours.
DeleteThere is grade smearing, over 50% of the metal content of the larger interval in constricted to just 10% of the interval. The disseminated mineralization, appears to be very variable (look at the surface zone where it disappears over literally centimeters).
What part of the story am i diminishing? The fact that the company has been glacially slow at releasing results, slapped on the wrist for not providing accurate information?
Maybe the market has accepted that the GGI story isn't as amazing as initially promoted, hence the massive drop in the company share price?
Aren't you concerned that the company still, 4 months after the holes were drilled, not released the results form all the drill-holes at Nickel Mountain? A better geologist that I wrote "this ain’t rocket science distinguishing massive sulfides in core", so why the delay from Lightfoot?
HACK
ReplyDeleteI think you either need a hobby or some regular employment. Maybe some professional upgrading while you are at it. Who would take this post seriously? If you could attend PDAC and personally speak with Dr. L he could help you with your interpretation.
ReplyDeleteYou took it seriously to post a comment?
Deletewhy can't Lightfeet make it crystal clear in a news release so AG cant make these comments that bring out trolls
ReplyDeleteIf they presented all of the data in a clear manner, everyone will see that they have nothing of Merit at Nickel mountain.
DeleteAhhh Andrea, misleading people again willingly.
ReplyDeletehow? I have presented the data in a form that people can take and view. For free.
DeleteI'm more than happy to receive criticism, it is how I learn and improve, but if you are going to write statements like that, please point out where I have been misleading people?
Thanks AG - keep up the great work, and showing your work - way more than the anonymous lot do. Gives perspective on the drilling to date.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, thanks AG for the updated Leapfrog view file with all the released holes including the addition of all assay intervals and metal values.
ReplyDeleteSecond off, Mr. Vacuum Cleaner Man is correct in the very narrow area of "smearing" ... part of the lower grade mineralization could make the cutoff for reserve in a mine plan. This would be based on NSR (many underground nickel sulfide deposits are using $60-$75/t NSR cutoff these days). Of course that NSR is net of recoveries and processing cost but $125/t GMV (based on Ni/Cu) probably beats that. The rest of his diatribe may just be anger at slow realization that he has wasted so much time and effort and credibility on this stinky deal.
Third off, I have taken your Leapfrog file, applied a grid over the plan and cross section views, and summated everything with a reported grade (no cutoffs) in 10 meter blocks. I've included moderate internal voids in the blocks and extended the envelope beyond the reported drill intervals laterally more or less respecting Leapfrog shapes (but did not assume any successful stepouts in open directions). This volumetric block analysis comes up with a maximum resource size at the current snapshot in time of 1.6 million cubic meters. In my experience block correcting reduction factors of 30-40% are typically appropriate so 1.6 million m3 x 70% could be a pretty good estimate, or 1.12 million m3. Applying a 3.25 SG gets us 3.6 million tonnes. I'll try to come up with a NiEq to apply to that tonnage and post it later.
Meanwhile, the AG Leapfrog model shows a cumulative 491,000 cubic meters in all resource shells but this is a faulty result. The actual number with a corrected Leapfrog model could potentially be double that number based on visual examination of the grade shell rotations. So perhaps up to 1 million cubic meters ... or roughly the same number as the adjusted volumetric analysis.
Please keep posting, running Leapfrog models, and thinking out loud. The trolls and idiots commenting here are badges of honor at best, entertainment at worst.
And before the ceo dumb dumbs start getting all happy about the tonnage to date that is a lot of low grade garbage in there. Not $1500/tonne like "engineer" says. LOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGG way off from being a mine. Short ways from being a 20cent stock
DeleteThat's a pretty good estimate Tom. On their website Garibaldi reports a MINFILE report estimate by Silver Standard of 2.9 million tonnes at 0.8% Ni and 0.6% Cu. Not nearly big enough and not nearly rich enough to mine.
DeleteI wonder whatever happened to the information acquired with the Sumitomo adit? You can see the adit about half way up the mountain, well below the Garibaldi drilling methinks. They must have drilled from underground at some point. I also wonder why Garibaldi hasn't explored the adit to maybe get some better drill angles?
Drill-hole 26 was drilled to explore the adit area. They mentioned that they hit some disseminated mineralization (but apparently not enough to report).
DeleteThe adit could have served for a couple of purposes
1. Try and intersect the down-dip continuation of the surface mineralization to take a bulk sample for met testing
2. for underground drilling to better define the extents of the mineralization.
I assume that this data has been lost in the sands of time, which is a shame.
Reports about what Sumitomo found with their underground drilling in the adit are scarce but generally it was low grade disseminated sulfides. This is consistent with what Garibaldi apparently found in hole 26. It is also consistent with sulfide entrainment and transport to the E&L fracture-fold zone where upgrading and settling occurred to form pods of massive sulfides. Both fractures and contact with sulfidic+reducing country rocks might be critical for mineralization at Nickel Mountain in addition to the typical structural traps found in the flow regime of chonolith type intrusions. My working hack hypothesis is a hybrid system where the sulfides may have been introduced into upper crust in a closed system (e.g. differentiated in a layered intrusion of possibly Alaskan-type) and subsequently remobilized in an open system during evolution of the back-arc basin.
DeleteI can live with that, but it does suggest that with depth, there is unlikely to be any mineralization as there is a lower probability of having sediments as they appear to occur as pendants in the Gabbro complex and don't seem to have been intersected in the deeper drilling below the known zones.
DeleteYes quite possible. On the other hand, the rocks are jumbled up quite a bit and at E&L the stratigraphy is tipped on its side so there is a possibility the sediments might come into contact with the sulfide bearing intrusive phase somewhere else. I think the key to potentially finding more pods might be to follow the chonolith structural path and attempt to trace it into hanging wall or footwall sediment contacts. They could prioritize by searching toward the edges of the intrusive complex and not further into it.
Deletewhat what - who hijacked Toms account. he sounds borderline reasonable here for a change
ReplyDeleteI don't always appear reasonable in real time, but in retrospect my reasonability rate tends to approach 95%. The problem is that sometimes I haven't considered all of the factors at the critical level that the market cares about. Rarely the buyer of a project might even look at these things differently, for example I have assumed on several occasions that the buyer of a Richard Warke project was being hoodwinked by his "just about to go into production" shtick whereas in reality a startup was about 10 years away (Rosemont, Taylor/Hermosa). Probably the buyers knew the trick was afoot but acquired the project anyway with a longer view. I've tried to learn from this and other episodes; I can't say the same for some others who are permanently set in their erroneous ways.
DeleteAwesome report keep up the great reporting
ReplyDeleteWould like to see a report on MXR something very fishy going on
ReplyDeleteThank you for your time
I'll try and have a look
DeleteCeo.ca bullboard is full of scam cheerleaders the hub is controlled by BMR groupies
ReplyDeleteAs noted, these guys are just trotting out an old project from the 1960s and doing tiny step-outs on known mineralization. Plus they take forever to release assays. NEXT!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteFFS there are 3 1/2 trading days left Brent! Yes we know Regoci probably withheld the final assays just to prove you wrong, but ANYTHING can happen in 3 1/2 days. Don't give up just yet.
DeleteI received an e-mail by Brent Cooke saying that he hadn't made the post above.
DeleteI have removed the original post. My comments section (this is my blog) is for people express their opinion (positive or negative) on my posts, not masquerade as someone else or vent against specific individuals.
I have no issues with you be unhappy with my work and directing criticism against me, as I enjoy reading your comment and the various discussions within.
I would like to make my first and probably last ever comment.
DeleteI am most grateful for this blog. It is often over my head (sometimes I wish people who comment would spell things out slightly more for the benefit of those, who like me, are not professionals or even super-duper amateurs). Even so, it is a treasure for me.
I could however do without the personal attacks and unpleasantness, especially when directed towards AG. Also, I am perfectly proficient in strong language and have used it plenty myself for decades, but a little bit goes a long way, and perhaps should be reserved for the blog's proprietor's use. In my opinion.