Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Thanks for your work on the satellite image, Paddy. I am glad that the fluffy clouds stayed away, so you could see what appear to be several more step-outs.
Newcrest are keeping up a cracking pace and obviously still very interested in the NW.
I keep remembering Gervaise, after the JV, saying that although we may have 30%, it will potentially become 30% of a much larger project. There should be plenty here for all the stakeholders.
Hopefully Newcrest can squeeze a little more than six weeks of results for the next interim exploration report, as I think they have done before.
Hydrogen -
I, also, have been thinking about the timelines. What positives could there be, with the delay to the work at the Scallywag targets?
Hopefully, we will be in an even stronger position at Havieron, in a few months, with the news that is expected there.
I have just watched Callum's interview again. The main orebody target, modelled on his screen, looks absolutely massive- even larger, when I view it again.
Let's hope that "Open at depth" proves to be an understatement, just as the potential for the rest of the horse-shoe, towards the north-west.
Jerseycrew -
I agree with you about the geologists who can make sense of the Paterson deposits. They must be able to think in multi-dimensions.
As well as the usual three physical dimensions, there are vulcanology, tectonics, chemistry, temperature, pressure, mineralogy, hydrology, any or all of which may be interacting with each other.
Then they find that the interesting areas start from 420 metres under sand and sandstone.
The dimension that I find really mind-boggling is the timeline - many different geological events spread over the lifetime of the formations - each with its own volcanic , tectonic or chemical attempt to destroy or modify what has gone before.
Let's see if the next satellite picture gives any clues.
(It's a pity we can't put an axle-counter on the "bridge" over the southern dune, to see how much traffic it is carrying).
Magictrades -
First of all:
Thank you very much for your explanation about magmatic gold and then sulphides. That geochemistry was exactly where I was needing clarity.
Secondly:
I have found the reference to a mafic intrusion. On Greatland Gold website, select: Projects, then select: Paterson.
Scroll down and below six coloured images is the title: Havieron.
Scroll down to the third paragraph, which has the sub-heading: Greatland's second drilling campaign.
This includes:
"Spectacular results from---HAD5---upper intercept---and lower zone---separated by an unmineralised mafic intrusion. "
"Established new peak grades at Havieron of: 211.3g/t Au, 12.38% Cu and 4,104ppm Co".
Gervise Heddle also referred to a significant width of cobalt found at Havieron, in his Proactive interview on 05/02/2019.
(I couldn't resist mentioning the peak grades and the cobalt).
Magictrades -
Thanks for replying so quickly.
I should have made the oxygen question clearer.
Is there a tendency for gold to drop out of magmatic fluid solutions, if the sulphur were to react with air, at the surface, so the sulphur became sulphides?
Or am I talking rubbish?
To save you some time, I will look back to see if I can find Gervaise's reference to a mafic intrusion. I may be able to give you the date concerned.
Vulnax, MagicTrades,Hydrogen,
I wonder if you can help me understand the significance of the sulphides at Havieron.
Is it the case that gold will not dissolve, for mineralising systems, without a chemical reaction with sulphur?
I have heard that a chemical reaction (at basement level, fo example) is more likely to cause gold to precipitate out of solution, than a change in temperature. Does oxygen often play a part, at the surface?
(Sorry - failed Chemistry)
Thanks, Magictrader.
You presentation was very detailed and a great help to me.
I remember Gervaise Heddle referring to the Havieron dyke intrusion as Mafic. Probably it was in an interview, following our early high-grade drill results, before the JV with Newcrest.
I look forward to our future in this great(land) company.
I agree, Spratt.
Callum knows that we are watching the sat. pics. every five days and he knows that Paddy is monitoring progress with his overlays.
If NCM are drilling deeper, because they keep finding more, then he cannot say that. It is for NCM to report it in the normal way and then Gevaise and/or Callum can update the GGP position.
What Callum can do is show us a pretty picture.
Thanks, Morningsun, for your post last evening.
My own view is that the images were a message, for those who have followed Havieron over the two years.
I think it was intended to encourage us to wait a little longer, until Newcrest can put their recent findings in a report.
As you know, we are waiting to find out more about the drilling in the SW.
I was pleased to listen to the presentation from CB. He sounded so competent to me.
He also came across as having a really good handle on the geophys. that GGP have used in the Paterson and their analysis of the early (HAC) drill core.
We usually hear video interviews with GH - sometimes GH and CB.
To hear more from CB, and in a presentation of his quiet confidence in our projects, showed what a team we have. I am sure that will not be lost on Institutional Investors.
They will be thinking:
" Here is a team we can invest in.
Look at what they have acheived in two years.
Look at the projects they have lined up.
Havieron is still being worked up, so our investment is gold-backed."
I don't think he could have broken confidentiality with his screensaver. It was not identified as Havieron, so it might have been just his favourite and, potentially, his most lucrative ore deposit.
Thanks, Paddy.
I don't know where you find the time to do all this work.
So telfer sits in the roof of our great regional anticline.
Altthough Hav. is much deeper, the advances in technology since the early Telfer exploration are certainly proving worthwhile for us. I was going to say "paying dividends for us", but it is too early in the project for that.
Let's hope we follow the fault lines to Scallyway, PRE and BH this season.
Thanks also, Hydrogen Jerry and Schmiel.
Thanks, Paddy.
I understand that breccia areas can be very deep.
If I picture hot mineralising fluids bubbling up through and then settling in broken rock, the gold and copper could reach considerable depths, before they solidify, especially with overprinting. Later overprinting could melt earlier mineral deposits, until they saturate the breccia.
We have hit deposits which have formed over millions of years and, once magma finds cracks and easy paths to push through, it can repeat the process over hundreds of thousands of years.
What we don't yet know, is how active the magma has been and how much overprinting has taken place, particularly in the SW where, as you say, we have hints of something really special.
Thanks for that work, Hydrogen.
We have seen a ribbon formation, which lies against the eastern flank of the mafic intrusion, in Paddy's extract from page 20 of the NCM Quarterly. The ribbon winds around part of the site and as the presentation is a plan, we cannot see the depth.
I am hoping that the west end of the ribbon dives to depth.
Also, I hope that the eastern part of the breccia ribbon follows the flank of the mafic intrusion to depth.
As you say, it should be cheaper to mine. A ribbon would surely be awkward to stope, but breccia, as already broken, might lead to NCM towards block caving.
Anyone, am I thinking along the right lines?
Paddy, I know our team are confident that they can apply what they learned at Hav. to Scallywag.
I was trying to remember , just 12 or 13 months ago, whether NCM were as excited about Hav. from the start of the JV.
Since the beginning, when GGP's drilling showed high grade results over a relatively small area, NCM have brought in more drills rigs, downhole logging, assays , more drill rigs----------
Now, we move into the growth phase. They wouldn't keep up such momentum unless the downhole logging was still delighting them.
Your Corebox images have been great and thank you, Paddy, for that work, but the angle of the drilling, down through 420m. of sandstone, means that the mineralised areas are, so far, much narrower than they might appear on the surface.
100 meters across, on the surface map, becomes perhaps 35 metres across in the Corebox, as NE and SW drills converge.
Fortunately, if they continue using the same drill angles, the dimensions and volume of the "good stuff" should rise rapidly, if we continue to get such great results. A step-out, in the SW, say 100m. from an earlier SW step-out would still be 100m. apart in the Corebox (if we still had the Corebox).
As we are open to the NW, the drillers may step-out in the NE as well and the "good stuff" could compound as the dimensions are multiplied.
As we are open at depth, we start to look at the possibility of compounding the cube multiplications.
(Many"ifs" and possibilities)
First of all, hydrogen , I must say sorry to you for mis-spelling your name in my last post. I was getting too excited about Havieron.
Paddy - I agree with you about Newcrest. They seem to use tech. efficiencies at every stage in both exploration of our site and in processing the ore at Telfer.
Whichever mining method(s) they choose for Havieron, (on a decision to mine, of course), I think we will benefit greatly from their experience at other sites.
I was really impresssed when I watched the video of Cadia, with the pre-sorting of ore, the many small electric trucks and a control room to manage it all.
As and when they start moving ore, Havieron may turn out to be a Cadia+, in terms of underground tech, because of the pace of change in the industry.
Paddy -
Thanks for overlaying the geophys. map onto the sat. image and showing the step-outs. This is all looking very interesting. The curve of the horseshoe in the SE is so close to the early geophys. prediction. It suggests to me they have confidence in the magnetic and gravity results - and those may be leading them to the NW.
Our website still contains a reference to a large anomaly of approx. 1000m. x 1000m.
1000m. x 1000m. x 600m. and still open?
But also predictions of depth to 1400m. - perhaps deeper.
How much is mineralised? A good part of it, by the drilling results we have received.
I keep hearing GH's voice, saying that the market does not understand the true scale of Havieron.
Oxygen -
Thanks for taking my idea and running with it. I had not dared to hope that there were two ore bodies, plunging to great depths. No wonder Newcrest are so keen on moving into the "growing" phase. They are using that word for a reason and we will have to wait, even with 8 or 9 rigs going 24/7.