If you have mined gold much in the past, you realize that in spite of what the average investor thinks, 10 feet of true width is a wide stope. You look at it at the beginning of shift, and wonder how in hell you are going to drill all that ore off in one day. 40 feet true widths are generally mined with ring drilling from stations, i.e. by bulk mining methods. To put it in perspective, a 200 foot stope, which is average, let's say, @ 30 feet wide, makes 3,666 short tons for every stoper drill-off, or routine mining round. (5 feet of lift). 2000 feet deep of that stuff makes 1.3 million tons. At .25 ounces per ton, that is 333,000 ounces. That could almost be a mine. The average grade of gold mines in Canada is .15 ounces per short ton.
So yes, it is the tonnage building width that makes these grades, not too shabby all in all for average widths, that makes this interesting.
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