RE: 5 or 6 million ounces"If the area is 1200 m in length, 300 meters wide and nearly 200 meters thick with an average grade
of even 1 g/t gold EAS has itself around 5.5 million ounces of gold!!"
Yes, that was the area roughly defined so far, of the Main Miwah Zone. As you describe, at even 1 g/t EAS has a substantial deposit. What they are "quibbling" about now is grade (as Lionel Martin, EAS' COO and head Geologist) commented on in an interview with Pescod in late October. Here's what he had to say about tonnage and grade in that interview:
"Basically we consider the tonnage as a given – it literally stands out of the ground, we have over 2 kilometres of rock sawn channel sampling which is effectively akin to HQ core at surface, and we defined it over a 1200 metre strike length that averages up to about 300 metres wide and 150 to 250 metres high. One can just do the math and come up with a very substantial tonnage. What we are really quibbling about now is grade and that is what we are trying to demonstrate with our diamond drilling.
"Our past rocks sawn channel sampling gave us about a 1.2 grams per ton gold average, but we are seeing with our recent drilling that it is much higher than that. So again, just by doing the math, there is a large amount of tonnage and it’s just going to be a matter of completing the drilling to determine what the end-grade is going to be, to allow us to come out with the potential ounces."
When asked, he declined to provide a specific number as to what they have for ounces, but said this...
"I think if we do some math on the dimensions that I gave you, and because we are dealing with a residual vuggy silica host rock, a classic alteration feature of a high sulphidation gold deposit, we can estimate for this a conservative specific gravity at about 2.3 and should easily be north of 100 or 125 million tons of material."
He then added South Miwah to the mix:
"In addition, we have the new South Miwah Bluff discovery which is basically adjacent to the west side of the Main Miwah Gold Zone where we put out some tremendous bonanza grades from early work. That footprint is currently mapped at about 650 by about 200 to 300 metres wide, so we can see that footprint now growing to a substantial size approaching that of the Main Miwah Zone.
"Here we are doing all the preparation sampling and detailed mapping to get that ready for drilling. I liken it to the fact it’s about three or four months behind the Main Miwah zone – it’s a new discovery and really showing the upside potential of the underexplored Miwah property. Those are added ounces into the game."
Finally, he further shared that Sipopok creates even further upside:
"Then, 1.5 km to the north we have the Sipopok play, which is about half the strike length of the Main Miwah zone, thus large and the early indications are similar alteration and gold mineralization. Again, upside to the Main Miwah zone that we are currently drilling."
So, without giving us a number, Lionel has provided us with a framework that outlines a LOT of ounces. For example, if we say the grade at the Main Miwah Zone is 1.5 g/t and there are 125mm tonnes of material (not unrealistic, given his comments), then there are six million ounces there. Then, if we add in higher grade ounces--say, 3 g/t-- from South Miwah with a tonnage half that of the Main Zone (more speculative, I know), we get another six million ounces. Last, if Sipopok ends up being half the size of the Main Miwah Zone (with similar alteration and mineralization--even more speculative), that adds another three milltion ounces. This totals fifteen millions ounces.
This interview was conducted before the recent step-out assays were in from the Main Zone. The Zone "remains open in all directions," as stated in the November 30 press release regarding hole 13's assays.
So, the final piece may be (as Sunshine recently speculated,) that these three deposits (the Main Miwah Zone, plus South Miwah, and Sipopok to the north) are somehow all connected--i.e., that they all part of one big deposit. If that is true, watch out--this thing will stun us all.