Hello Alan
I was not following the play closely in the DB's days. At that time it was the kiss of death when they showed up so I wrote it off for a while. Not entirely sure their involvement on any play makes it any more prospective to follow even now, but they do appear to have changed their approach. They are certainly active for MPV and would appear to be gearing up for GMD.
I am going by an admittedly bad memory, but I believe they only discovered one of those pipes, but did redrill several. Again, at that time no one took what they said with a grain of salt because of the comonly held view that they were not in the business of putting pipes into production. Rather it was believed that they had in Australia anyway withheld pipes from the market to maintain prices which of course favoured their distribution and whole sale operations.
The T-10 was found just a few years ago by Cypango, so DB's never did any testing on it.
I believe in those days DB's was elephant hunting and the small size of the NWT pipes didn't fit their corporate objectives. No Camafucas, Premiers or Jewenangs up here.
From what I have been able to find out, their exploration of the site was cursory at best with only a modest sampling program, limited surveying, and then only on a widely spaced fixed wing program.
Techniques, technology and glacial theory have evolved dramatically in the last two years and discoveries are now being made on ground thought to be thoroughly explored before.
DB's missed the S141, T-10 and all of SUF's 90 targets (25 high priority).
The techniques dealing with the implications of pyroclastic vs hypabyssal pipes with regard to the signals they exhibit on mag and EM surveys combined with the vagaries of the various magnetic fields up here, lake bottom sediment interference and low level closely spaced helicopter flown grids vs high level fixed wing wider grids, have all realized benefits and refinements through the experience gained since 1992.
In addition, a number of economic pipes up here and in Africa have been discovered over the last decade exhibiting little classic or typical train kimberlite chemistry. Some trains have few if any pyropes and are primarily clino pyroxenes with some high Cr & Mg Chromite grains. The Gooseneck targets appeared at one time to possibly fall at least in part into this category.
There have also been a number of kimberlites found with very low micro/macro counts or grades, but because of a sufficient number of exceptional stones they have actually proven to be very economic. This has implications for a number of apparently low-grade NWT pipes. I am always concerned that budgets rarely allow thorough enough drill or mini-bulk sampling and all too often you read of 45 to 84-kg samples with modest micro/macro counts. The small sample sizes employed could not possibly establish for sure whether such kimberlites might actually be such low grade high value pipes and as such I am sure a number are prematurely written off as uneconomic.
The T-10 provides another example of the implication of the small sample sizes in that CAV's numbers from one phase of the intrusion kick out attractive micro/macro counts while SUF's data from another phase provides very low numbers. As an investor, you rarely are told whether testing sampled all phases equally, and/or whether primary or hypabyssal kimberlite was sampled rather than its pyroclastic offspring.
The grade of the two types can be significantly different within the same pipe or completely opposite in two pipes nearby one another. Take a close look at some of the data from ABZ's and DMM's pipes and you will find some remarkable variances.
I suppose the point is that it ain't over till the fat lady is singin at the top of her voice.
Regards |
