Hi Kiwibird, to try & answer some of your questions. The initial...

Hi Kiwibird, to try & answer some of your questions. The initial announcement as regards to the Adit was for it to be developed by handheld airleg drills, that has possibly fallen by the wayside if a tunneling excavator is to be used. If that is the case then the country rock must be very soft with poor competent ground which in turn will make ground control very expensive ( rockbolts, cablebolts, mesh & shotcrete.) There is a possibility that this will improve with depth depending on rock type. As for the major fault and the movement of the whole side of the mountain slipping into the valley in times past, its obvious that any orebodies will be offset by the slip, but as i said i dont know the depth or thickness of the slip. Check out Peter Ryans book, Black Bonanza, interesting reading and will give you an idea as to the challenges yet to come & the first one is an all weather access road into the mine site so that the mentioned machinery can actually arrive onsite. The Sandvik loader could be utilized with heavy tread tyres & chains, its a very powerfull machine, but there are other machines more suitable for the task. Anyway good luck to all holders i honestly hope everything works out for all. Not much will be happening on the ground due to the monsoon, at the same time the company might unravel the dogs breakfast of legal claims in the meantime.