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

To: Elizabeth Andrews who wrote (2986)	11/14/1998 5:21:00 AM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3744

Lots of base metal and gold have been drilled with low torque drills in Alberta and other mountainous terranes. They even drill with blow out preventers in Alberta for diamonds! The problem with the ground is that it collapses and breaks into the hole and prevents progress of the drill string. This may grinds core and prevents recovery. I don't know if the sludges are also lost. Blocky ground is got around skillfully by drillers who use quick releases, drill with low pressure and use muds of varying composition. It is also less troublesome with larger diameter drills, which is the first thing you try. The ground stays up well in drifts and tunnels however. This kind of high pressure, mouintainous ground that shifts slightly constantly and is very fracture is routinely drilled in the Andes and Rockies by oil and gas drilling companies who as you may realize specialize in drilling these kind of formations. Sedimentary mountain formations are traditionally much harder to drill and you have to hire experts to do it. If it had been my choice I would have specified B.C. diamond drillers and 4 inch core with steep holes from the outset. If that did not work with all polymers and jiggling the string from the outset then I would have gone underground or chuck drilled or down hole hammered or low torque drilled right away. They just banged away with unsuitable results in a large portion of the deposits too blithely for too long. Quartzites are good hosts in Peru for large deposits as Barrick and Newmont found out. That is a why a major portion of Peru is staked now. The Yanacocha mine in the same formation about 200 kilometres away, I believe, is in the same Calipuy formation. So is the Periena deposit which promises to be the second largest gold depoist in South America behind the Yanacocha. EC<:-} mailto:echarter@vianet.on.ca