Originally posted by eastwest101:
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OK - lots to absorb there in that drilling announcement but my initial thoughts are that this is early days but very encouraging. Could be mind blowing to some that Shamrock and Mt Scheelite didn't have any drill holes in them before AMG stuck a few RC holes into them but that's typical for Mt Isa/Cloncurry, anyone who tells you that the Mt Isa Fold belt is a mature or well explored ground is talking out their behind as they obviously haven't been out there and seen the numerous historical workings abandoned throughout the entire region and they are all in extremely isolated inconvenient locations. Anyway - my initial thoughts on this early stages but highly successful exploration drilling:Shamrock - gold grades maybe decreasing at depth (note no Cu at all) within magnetic high (degraded weathered ironstone or magnetite rich fault? Geology looks good - on the contact of the Mt Norma Quartzites which are good rocks to be in - mineralization at surface only seems like its 50m strike length at surface but that's only at surface, who knows what's going on at depth. - hole SH18RC005 drilled a little oblique to the mineralization but other hole is perpendicular, so it at least looks like the drilling is in a sensible orientation. note that SH18RC005 had a 20g/T Au metre only a few metres before end of hole so may not have been able to go far enough to close off the mineralization in the footwall (probably too much water to continue drilling?) - hole SH18RC008 drilled directly west has a sample 45-46m depth with a sample seeming to be there but no Au assay (sample too small? underground cavity without sample return? wet sample? or lab stuff up?) would be nice to know as its in the high grade intercept. - shallow open pit at surface seems similar width to ore zone intersected below - probably only stopped digging to go to WW1 or 2 so no real reason for abandonment like most places out there. - open to the south along strike, wouldn't surprise me if there is a southerly plunge component too so may be worth chasing down plunge even if drilling south along strike shows grades and thicknesses decreasing. - currently drilling a fence of holes somewhere north of existing holes at Shamrock, good idea to get some handle on possible repetitions and a fence of holes will put all the geology into a cross section that will be invaluable for them in the future.Mt Scheelite - unusual but not unknown association of Tungsten (W) and gold (Au) - drilling towards the ENE - why not just drill directly east looking at the regional strike on the airphoto - hole MS18RC001 has economic gold at relatively shallow depths in an interpreted steep easterly dip (again in Mt Norma Quartzites which are good rocks to be in). Quartz breccia zone probably a bit weathered and difficult to identify rocks in RC chips so geology a bit of an enigma so far. - lots of ore missed / left behind by historic miners - looks like they sunk a vertical shaft thru the ore zone then continued deeper without any horizontal develoment? Pretty common with old historical mining. - hole MS18RC001 is great, hole MS18RC002 pretty skinny and not much grade despite hole 2 directed at the best surface outcrop, could even be plunging towards the north? Open to north along strike. - pretty small so far but open in several directions, even without the Tungsten the gold grades are decent (I woudn't place too much emphasis on W yet as there are issues extracting it and not as simple as extracting gold).
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Looks like the Shamrock ore dimension is approximately 15m-20m width, ~50m length and ~70m depth? Of course, we wont know if its continuous and if its still open until further drilling.