“The high grade minerisation is contained within extremely weathered palid clays with minor quartz veining, visible gold is contained both within the quartz veins and as free gold. The mineralisation is approximately eight metres above a weathered black shale contact (see Figure Four)”
The term “pallid clays” refers to an area in the saprolitic zone of weathering where the fabric of the underlying rock is not visible and Fe mottling is not present. It exists just above a zone where the rock is still weathered to clay but the rock fabrics can still be made out. The saprolite normally occurs above a saprock zone which is partly weathered rock where the rock fabric is more easily seen and occurs on the transition to the fresh rock.
You can read about these various weathering profiles in this presentation here. There is also a picture of a man standing in front of an exposure of a pallid saprolitic clay on page 9 of the link below.
What I’m saying is that based on the company’s own description this intersection occurs in weathered basement rock not in a paleochannel IMO. Paleochannels are supergene zones that are controlled by old fluvial (creek systems). When I say old I mean geologically old ie Cenozoic (66 million years old to the present day). The pallid zone clays which I believe are being referred to in the announcement derive from the basement rock which is billions of years old. The profile of a paleochannel would be very easy for a trained geologist to see and if this is a paleochannel they would have recognised it and stated so in the announcement. I do presume GCY employ geologists who are the real deal.
If you are interested in supergene paleochannel gold look at some of EXU’s latest announcements on their new Mace deposit. Mace is shallow (about 9m deep) about 1.1km long and varies in width (50m-80m wide from memory). Grades are nowhere near as high but are reasonably consistent across and along the strike of the deposit. I think Mace is a particularly shallow deposit for this style of deposit so the depth is not necesarily a defining factor.
Also if this was a paleochannel which I don’t think it is they would have had a very good chance of hitting gold at the same vertical level with both holes given the proximity of the holes to one another.
Just playing the devils advocate here so don’t jump down my throat but looking at this find in the context of the Mining Act I find it curious.
In the old days in WA if you held and exploration licence you could drive out to it with a drill rig and start drilling holes at your own discretion without any form of approval. The licence itself gave you the right to “explore”.
I can’t remember when the Act changed but probably about 10 years ago the mines department introduced a requirement for a work program to be submitted and approved gained before any drilling could commence. This was largely done as an environmental protection measure so that the government could more easily monitor the exploration activities and the remediation of ground distrubances.
To cut a long story short you send your drilling plan in, it takes a few weeks (or more) to get approved, then you go and drill based on that plan. In the old days before this law changed if I drilled a hole and panned an interval from the hole that contained a sample of visible gold like this, I’d drive back to town ring the office say hallelujah and tell ‘em to send more boys out to the field, then I would tell the drillers to move the rig up and down and drill the thing like Swiss cheese.
Now I can’t do that. The two holes that are shown as “Recent RC holes” on figure 3 of the announcement will be the the holes subject to the program of works that was approved, unless of course the company is omitting to show investors other planned and approved holes that are yet to be drilled.
Having said this the program of works is not that restrictive when it comes to hole depths as it only includes an indication of the expected hole depths for a particular type of drilling, so if a company drills deeper or shallower it is no big deal.
This brings me to my point. They targeted the historic air core hole DGAC0194 (9m at 1.1g/t from 64m) with this two hole program when there was a higher grade and slightly shallower intersection about 200m to the east.
Why go after this hole? Why go after this hole with such a small program of drilling, only two holes!!? The program looks odd to me based on the previous results and doesn’t make sense. To small, to specifically targeted considering the other higher grade historic AC intersect 200m to the west. Looks like a set up to me but you can’t deny the gold and the grade, it’s there. But how much I there is the question.
I would remain cautious until more holes are drilled.
I certainly wouldn’t be writing articles with titles saying that GCY has “shored up” Glenburgh with RC drilling. There is no evidence yet that the project has been shored up in any way by these results.
I also agree with Midnight’s observation about how the grade is smeared down the hole. Looks like contamination to me so I also wouldn’t rely on the width of the intersection at this early stage until more drilling confirms what is truly there.
This story is about getting the three open pits working to make positive cash flows not about this hole. If I was invested here I’d be keeping a close eye on the main game for now. The blue sky is not going anywhere but possibly down the drain if they don’t get the mine making money soon.
