George, yer a prince! :) -- And, our Prince at the helm, prez. Rick Boulay,
has again offered some responses and bueno comments for us to review here.
-- I might point out that this info is tendered by him voluntarily,...
and I know that you, myself, Larry, Russett, and many other MMU
shareholders/ watchers here appreciate Rick's generous efforts GREATLY!
[Posted with consent]:
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Hello Jesse:
Thanks for sending me various questions and excerpts.
I was traveling, sort of a working vacation, with directors meetings and stuff
here and there. Accordingly, I tried to cut down on my outgoing email. Early May
is a good time for me to travel because its usually dead time for me, samples
from spring programs are being processed and we can't get into the field because
its too wet. I usually attend director's meetings and the Mount Real (MRF)
annual meeting. This year, the 10th year of my founding MRF and the sixth
anniversary of transferring control to current management. I recently rotated
off the board since its time to do other things, like dedicate even more time to
Marum. Then, packing a cell phone and portable computer, I normally try to take
a week to go on a working vacation to add to my geological education and to
collect a few rocks. This year one of the places I went to was Ile Bizard, near
Montreal to collect some of the "kimberlite" that had been tested by Monopros
years ago. Its weakly diamondiferous, I'm told. I shipped 50 kilos to Edmonton
for analysis and archive by the Alberta Geological Survey since we need to
develop a good collection to provide a proper scientific foundation to the
Alberta Diamond Play as it develops and expands.
We are all on standby to go to the field for a sampling program as soon as we
can. Last week's snowfall in northern Alberta can be expected to delay things a
few days to a week. We still don't know what the timing will be but will keep
shareholders as informed as we can.
Here are some comments to your questions and items you pointed out to me:
One commentator has speculated that I have engaged in criminal conduct by
frontrunning a specific individual with advance notice of news releases. This is
a very serious "accusation", which I deny, but which should nevertheless be
investigated. I invite the individual to report their evidence or speculation to
the Alberta Stock Exchange surveillance staff. Here is a contact: Dean Stewart,
ASE Surveillance Tel: (403) 974-7450. What a pain!. I don't mind hard, honest
constructive criticism but unfounded speculation of criminal conduct is really
annoying, unethical and unprofessional.
There has been some talk of mineral exploration companies switching to internet
deals. I have seen the announcements for some of the deals. Marum management has
no plans to "diversify" into the net business even though we are probably more
qualified than most to do so. We have over 1 million acres of diamond land in
Alberta that we have under active exploration and our plate is full. BTW, I do
consult from time to time to Upland Global (UPL on Alberta) and advise them on
their net activities. Check out their latest news release regarding
HeartlandAmerica.com and compare that with some of the other recent
mining/internet company releases. UPL is a major customer of MRF and I assisted
them in going public in 1995. I'm a director of UPL but do not get involved in
the company's daily activities. UPL's approach to the net is very different and
one that makes real sense. Each transaction, including the first one, must be
profitable. So, if anyone is looking for an internet play, check out UPL, rather
than one of the the mining/internet "trans-investites" where the information
circulars always includes the phrase ".... no (select one: earnings/revenues)
are expected for (fill in the blank) years". Again, Marum is a diamond
exploration company and will remain so. If we find other commodities, such as
metallic commodities, we will develop them and then seek to joint venture with a
major. This makes sense and in no way indicates any lessening of enthusiasm for
our diamond exploration projects.
As to what is currently happening. We have essentially finished taking metallic
samples in three of the drill holes and have taken and submitted samples for
diamond analysis. We expect new assay and geochem analyses very soon. Diamond
analyses will take a little longer.
Just before emailing this to you I noticed a really excellent question on the
Marum SI thread. "....why is it logical that the diamonds would be homogeneously
spread thru the P-1 layer." Great question. Not an easy one to answer at this
stage. The early geochemistry of the beast indicates that it has a magmatic
origin that is favourable to diamond formation and transport to surface. Usually
in a pipe environment the diamonds can be considered to be more or less
homogeneous for mining purposes assuming the units of evaluation are very large,
say 100,000 tonnes. That is, one unit will contain the same number of carats as
another unit. Reduce the sample unit to, say, one tonne and most pipe deposits
are extremely non-homogeneous. Pyroclastics or volcaniclastic ejecta from
diamond-bearing pipes can be extremely variable in terms of diamond grade
consistency. The "sandy tuff" of the Argyle mine in Australia is notoriously
homogeneous for all diamonds, including microdiamonds, but not particularly
homogeneous for macros-only. Information is hard to obtain for the distribution
of diamonds in the volcaniclastic ores of Botswana that are mined by DeBeers.
Generally, to the extent that we have been able to determine, volcaniclastics
tend to be homogeneous locally, but not homogeneous when developed regionally.
Since we have regional development in the Chinchaga, the comparison with known
models around the world would suggest that the distribution of diamonds will not
be homogeneous. Rather, we would expect marine to fluvial concentration of
diamonds to occur in keeping with diamond's density relative to the other grains
in the volcaniclastic mix. This make exploration somewhat more difficult but
does allow for grade concentration much higher that can be expected from pipe
material. We feel comfortable in saying that the entire unit is prospective for
diamond but we do not expect any minerals to be homogeneously distributed
throughout the rock unit. We have a lot of work to do on this and our proposed
large scale sampling program may answer some of these questions in the near
term. We'll see.
You can post this if you attribute it directly to me.
Best Regards, Rick Boulay
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Cheers,
-j
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