I think MAN chose to drill TG-3 because it is one of the largest anomalies that is close to TG-1 on the same gravity trend as TG-1. They would have drilled it some day, but seeing as the town of Tambogrande is sitting on TG-1 and has no plans of moving yet, why not focus on something outside of town.
The anomalies are a function of depth, volume and density contrast. They are also a function of the direction the survey was done. I can not tell from the map on the MAN site which anomaly is the best- they show up as blobs without contours or numbers. The best anomaly would theoretically be the one that would have the largest area, that is on trend with other massive sulfides and that has a steep slope to a very high plateau. It's hard to tell- there are no drill holes in between anomalies to tell us what is there. Someone mentioned the Neves-Corvo area deposits previously. In the Neves-Corvo area, there are 5 sulfide deposits. Only two of the five have gravity anomalies. The other three have no associated gravity anomalies. Hence, the exploration lesson is, the absence of an anomaly does not necessarily mean there is nothing there. No anomaly means inconclusive. Howy was wondering what lies between hole 10 on TG-3 and hole 37 on TG-1. Perhaps there are sulfide lenses all the way from TG-1 to TG-3. Inconclusive until drilled. I would love to see magnetic, electromagnetic and gravity survey maps for the area. If you got coincident anomalies in all three surveys, that would be the best target. But, alas, all of these things take time and money AND they remain only targets until drilled. It is much better (and cheaper) exploration practice to get the drill on the multiple gravity targets ASAP. It is a better use of the shareholder's money. Drilling leads to a conclusion.
The priority drill targets are the gravity anomalies. The TG-1, TG-3 and 8 other anomalies are approximately the same size- all are larger than 500 meters in diameter. TG-7 is two smaller anomalies that are close to each other. TG-5, TG-2 and B-05 are smaller isolated anomalies (there are a total of 16 anomalies shown on the map). If MAN can come up with a mine on another anomaly (they have 15 tries) then the TG-1 vs town of Tambogrande is a non-issue. |
