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Gold/Mining/Energy : Newfoundland Gold Camp -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sense who wrote (227)	4/16/2022 5:17:08 PM
From: sense	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 254

But, there is a new problem apparent at NFG... That's pretty clear in both the text and the figures... In text they discuss that as "Note that the host structures are interpreted to be steeply dipping and true widths are generally estimated to be 60% to 95% of reported intervals. Infill veining in secondary structures with multiple orientations crosscutting the primary host structures are commonly observed in drill core which could result in additional uncertainty in true width". So, you might add a new concern to the prior problem in "nugget effect"... The prior issue is a very particular one in relation to the technical handling of the cores under assay... or, as much perhaps, about the way in which they're reported... which does not really concern me greatly re having any meaningful impact on the statistical resolution in "resource modeling"... and, it seems that they've resolved that concern, now, with overkill if anything... clearly including taking a more subdued approach to the PR in the wake of the event. Mostly what that shows, now... is that they took it seriously and addressed it properly... and, as I noted, the public impact is likely more in damping the enthusiasm shown in PR now... far more than altering what's likely to emerge in modeling resource values from the aggregate data. Given what they're showing is there... and that they're well enough funded to sustain this for a while... they can afford to bide time and take a more conservative approach to letting the rocks tell their story... in the time that takes... I'm very OK with that. But, the current problem I see emerging... shows up pretty clearly in both text and graphics... In text, it bears some resemblance to the "nugget effect" issue in a core sample... as the focus is broadened out from whats inside a core to what's outside of it... as they address the similarly disparate nature of the distribution in orientation (or the lack of it in randomness) in sub-structures internal to the larger structure being revealed now by the growing mass of the data... Note that the host structures are interpreted to be steeply dipping and true widths are generally estimated to be 60% to 95% of reported intervals. Infill veining in secondary structures with multiple orientations crosscutting the primary host structures are commonly observed in drill core which could result in additional uncertainty in true width. So, while its nice to hit the high grade... the nature of the rocks, or, the limits in what you are able to determine about them given their nature... paired with the limits in the current plan they're prosecuting in looking... doesn't really help much to resolve that. When you hit a patch of high grade... how extensive is the bleb you intersected ? What's the nature of the halo around it ? You can't really know. Maybe the hit was no wider than the drill core... maybe it was much larger, only in an orientation that you have no possible way of recognizing from having a single hole run through it... You hope that by drilling enough holes the noise will tend to average out... and, yes, it will... but, it will in some degree, only... while the nature of the variation that exists within the rocks is not that well defined... thus leaving questions still about the nature and range of potential variability in the distribution... and thus in the numerical impact of that "noise" in relation to efforts in quantification... Graphically, that problem is made apparent in a statistically relevant way... in the distribution of the holes being drilled... because they're all being drilled on the same orientation... I assume there's a good reason for that... in access, or permitting simplified based on access limits ? The nature of the problem... far more given their definition of the "multiple orientations crosscutting the primary host structures"... might be described as... it not being possible to know the true density or directional extent of the "matte" or "web" that is formed by the intrusions into the larger host body... You can look at the crazy angles and size of structural features (and the grade) variations occurring within the structures that are apparent in a core... and interpret some wag about the nature of the variability from that... but that CANNOT properly delimit the full nature or extent of the problem ? They define their awareness of it in the resulting uncertainty in the text as... " true widths are generally estimated to be 60% to 95% of reported intervals"... so, they define the "noise" factor in cores drilled... being as much as 35% of what they're reporting ? Yikes. And, while that problem in variability is always going to impose some degree of uncertainty... the extent of it now is almost entirely self induced... as a fairly simple matter of math in having paired a known in a highly anisotropic distribution issue... with a highly isotropic exploration scheme... . It's easily defined in math as a simple "navigation" issue, on one hand... as having all lines of position parallel... reduces potential resolution in any understanding of relationships in position...or distribution... Make it starkly obvious as... if the structure of distribution of good stuff in your gold mine approximates a tennis net... and you are drilling all your holes on a single axis... it's not really possible to properly determine how much net to air there is in a tennis net that way ? If you are drilling 90 degrees perpendicular to the net face... you will hit a much higher percentage of air than net... if you are drilling at a 15 degree angle to the net face... you will get a lot more net to air than you did at 90 degrees ? And, if you are drilling perfectly in line with the net... how much net you hit will still be a function of the angle taken... as drilling down into the net from above at a 45% angle will cut from corner to corner of the net... bisecting its squares into triangles will give you air gaps the length of the hypotenuse... over-representing the air relative to net ? And if the net is positioned such that you are drilling horizontally into the net parallel to its horizontal strings... you might hit intermittent air and vertical net risers... or might end up drilling the whole length along a single parallel "vein" in a horizontal string... or might just miss the whole thing "by that much" ? You won't know what you'll learn from it until you do it... as any picture taken from only one angle imposes real limits in what you can see... that views from other angles might reveal... Even just a bit of that... and you can expect it will help to reduce uncertainty... and improve the statistical validity of the modeling... Of course, the deposit isn't a tennis net... it will be more complex than that... but, to find out what the nature of the anisotropy in distribution is... [and, if not a tennis net... then, whether an inch thick wool sock here, whispy thin nylons there... fishnets ? Or, all three layered ? ]... and to determine what limits it has and the nature of variation... you will have to drill holes from more than one angle. I see only one hole that's "close"... down in the lower left corner there's one hole parallel to a vein structure... So, how do you "fix" that ? It doesn't really solve the problem to drill "a" hole at a cross angle... And, it really requires some variation be applied... in drilling holes not just at different angles... but perhaps drilling a few in parallel, at a crossing angle, in a distribution in close spacing... to try to better capture the nature of "near hole" variation... which might then project higher resolution into crossing angles drilled at a more regular distribution ? Poke one spot with a multi-pronged meat tenderizer... and then you might better generalize the interpretation in other holes ? OR... perhaps it might justify an adit... at Keats, at least... which might legitimately allow using some exploration $ to get a head start on digging a hole... which might also allow getting better quality / higher resolution drill work done from down in the hole... and help getting deeper structural tests done faster and with less risk.... while addressing a lot of geotechnical engineering questions with answers a lot earlier... saving time and money in the long term... I'm not an expert on flow through limits... not a rocks engineer... and haven't costed it out, or anything... but, if it makes good sense as one possibility in reducing the uncertainty factor... the more intimate knowledge of the structure down there... from going down there and looking at it... might add 30% to the value... which has to be computed into the cost-risk both in terms of that impact in de-risking prior to a valuation... as well as in advancing the project physically far more than just drilling a lot more holes can... For now, it also looks like the lack of better resolution on that issue in the data generated... paired with prior experience... is driving them into more conservative reporting... And, that's probably good... But, this will have to be "fixed" long before this gets financed for mine building... I expect they might also deliver some eye popping numbers... by drilling a few holes parallel to the slope in the dip... tracking through the heart of the high grade chutes they've defined ? So, they're probably saving that for last ? But, they don't all have to target the core... rather than help define the nature of the variation in structure and distributions parallel to the dip... throughout the host structure ?