Part 2 The Gold Discovery Letter SpecialPart 2 The Gold Discovery Letter Special
First some info from the author on his own position;
By Robert Proby (Bemabeamer)
“I'm not the typical investor. I follow my own intuition. It is what told me to invest heavily in Bema in 1995. I did and in 1996 the stock went on a tear on the breaking story of Cerro Casale. That's when I started to study geology as the source of all the great discoveries. I came back to Bema in 1999 and held during the downturn simply because I knew that bad cycles are always followed by good cycles. In 2001, I started loading the boat at $0.38 and continued to do so for the entire year. I have been accused of many things such as pipe dreaming and heading for disaster. Sure, it goes with the territory but I prefer to spend my time doing research until I'm exhausted. And then I do some more. When Tom Garagan, Bema's geologist, finally started producing Technical Reports on Kupol and Bema's other projects, I was delighted. This led me to search for other topics related to the field and I continue studying to this day.
As for Victoria, I had always followed it a Bema subsidiary. I hesitated to buy when my intuition was telling me to buy at $0.40 early on. I never did because I always felt that any discovery would be reflected in the share price of Bema. I was wrong. Another lesson that told me to follow my instincts. After the so-called failure at Mill Canyon, I realized that with all the mineralized holes that had been found, the story had only been put on hold until more detailed work would eventually lead to success. I bought my first shares in March 2005. When the series of news releases came out about the acquisition of one property after another, I knew something very important was going on behind the scenes. I couldn't pinpoint what it was but I certainly decided to accumulate the shares whenever I had the resources to do so.
Then something happened last fall. I saw about 10 million shares picked up in the 30-40 cent range in about six weeks. These must have been the institutions doing some bottom fishing. I'm a small investor and I don't have deep pockets but my intuition and research has led me to believe that we have a great team of hard-working and skilled geologists who are about 3 steps ahead of the rest of the geologists trying to get their heads around the very complicated geology that is Nevada. They were astute enough to realize that they had to get hold of the right properties before they started proving up their theories with the drill bit. We finally hit that point on January 9, 2007 when the press release about holes NW-1 and NW-3 were published.
I expect that there will be a lot of banter at the PDAC about what Victoria may and may not have. Many will realize that Summit and Black Canyon are sure things, simply based on prior work done at the sites and the information supplied in the acquisition news releases. Deep drilling is the only way to go in the future as all the shallower near surface deposits are being exhausted. The deep deposits that I have been able to study to date tells us that buried or unseen deposits lurk all over the place and will be found by those knowledgeable enough to spend the time to find them. Victoria's geologists developed a concept based on many years of research and testing. They are now implementing their strategy to unearth these deeper deposits and many of them will become known this very year.
Kinross can't keep this under wraps for very much longer. It wouldn’t surprise us if the two biggest miners in Nevada, Newmont and Barrick, will be following this story very closely from now on. The flood of spring drilling is close at hand and I think we will be seeing how very big this story is going to become. I can't wait!”
Below Robert’s Proby article:
Victoria discovery in a broader (Nevada) context
Deeper May Be Better
By Robert Proby (Bemabeamer)
'An Armchair Geologist'
Simply said, one of the richest gold belts in the world is the state of Nevada. Many theories and concepts abound in relation to the formation of mineral deposits of gold and silver. Plate tectonics is the primary source, as evidenced by the many topographic maps of the Carlin, Battle Mountain, Cortez and Eureka Trends.
In concert with these tectonic events were the hydrothermal events that created the numerous near surface zones of mineralization. The most notable of these formations has been the lower plate deposits associated with the Roberts Mountain Formation and the related wenban limestones at Cortez Hills.
Other targets for deposits have been the basement faults which may run up to several kilometers in width. These shear zones may be grouped in sets of parallel structures. In time, these near surface deposits will have all become depleted by mining. But there exists another more subtle source of mineralization from deep within the earth's crust. Miles below the surface, a molten source of very hot minerals exists in an environment of extreme pressures.
The fractured plates of Nevada are criss-crossed by intrusive complexes, fractures and faults brought on by the brutal forces of nature. The normal tensile strength and rigidity of the surface layers has been decidedly weakened. This would imply that magma chambers would have developed in these weakened areas as they sought to relieve those pressures from the depths. The faults and fractures would have become the primary conduit for the mineral flow towards the surface in the form of feeder veins and many beds of amenable rock formations would have become the repository for numerous deposits of gold and silver.
The Fish Creek Mountain region was an active area of plate upheaval. In the area of the Cove and McCoy mines, distinctly separate deposit types were formed in very close proximity to each other. Unusual, no … not if two very separate events took place after long periods of time. The various rock formations that were uncovered during the Cove mining operations seem to indicate that a massive sulfide deposit may be close at hand.
What we don't know is whether it was the result of hydrothermal activity or the distribution of a magma chamber into the weakened rock formations at depth. It should be noted that the Cove pit bottomed at about 1,400 feet. Sulfide was predominant in the Panther Canyon Formation. The deep drilling to the northwest of Cove indicates that a large area of mineralization is present.
It starts at the 1,200 foot level and runs at least 675 feet down hole. There is a major contact fault close by that runs, more or less, in a north-south direction. The Favret Formation may be the depository for an extensive belt of mineralized ore, namely gold. Follow-up drilling will provide the much needed answers to the initial results to date. There seems to have been a recent rush to stake additional claims adjacent to the Cove-McCoy deposit site by Victoria Resources which has the joint venture agreement with Newmont Mining for Cove-McCoy.
Preliminary drill results may have prompted this event and could very well be related to the size of the mineralized trend that is being uncovered. Whether this is further related to a large, buried porphyry intrusive system remains to be seen. The central core of the large porphyry deposits can be extremely rich. For example, the central core of the Cerro Casale porphyry deposit in Chile lies about 900 to 1,200 feet below surface and its Catalina Breccia core grades up to 13% copper and 200 grams per tonne gold.
The many years of experience as geologists of the key players in this recent discovery are beyond reproach. The most interesting aspect of this find is that they are using the latest methods in technology and research to buttress their cause. Just as computer technology has made forensic accounting a simple task, so will forensic geology make the search for deposits more commonplace and successful. New methods of carbon and oxygen isotope analysis in the deep core holes are leading edge developments in the discovery process for mineral deposits.
Other state-of-the-art techniques and processes are likely being used as the field of geology catches up to the 21st Century. Older methods may be tried and true but recent developments in the field are being used by those few who are in the forefront of discovering the latest ore bodies. There is a new breed of geologists who have taken the science up to the next highest level of research. Some of their theories are proposing that deeper deposits exist throughout Nevada and they are refining their analytical skills with the main purpose of tracking down these elusive ore bodies. The entire 8 projects that Victoria Resources will be planning to drill this year are just such examples. All have be selected using certain methods whose features have been used to provide semi-predictive exploration techniques that have proven to be relatively successful in defining bodies with high potential for gold concentrations.
Research into the success of deep deposit mining in Nevada makes it quite evident that it has been underway for many years. Newmont Mining and Barrick Gold have developed several of these deposits and are the leaders in the field. Several technical reports and abstracts are available for such deposits as Deep Post, Turf and Ren.
Using a large workforce of mining geologists, working shoulder to shoulder with mining engineers, has led to a rapid conquest of the challenges that confronted them with deep drilling operations. Around the clock cooling ventilation and water pumping are just a few of the prerequisites for such operations. In some cases, water pumping must be initiated some 12 to 18 months before actual mining begins.
The Deep Post ore body is situated at around the 1 kilometer level in the Roberts Mountain Formation. Concepts presently exist that there may be converged plunge lines of sub-feeder zones like Deep Post, Deep Star and Meikle as far as 2 kilometers in depth or beyond.
The Turf deposit is another example of a deep, high-grade gold deposit. It spans 3,800 feet in strike length and is located from 1,700 to 2,600 feet below surface. The mineralization lies predominantly in the Popovich and Roberts Mountain Formations.
The Ren deposit is yet another example of a deep, high-grade gold deposit. It also has an ore body that is mainly situated in the Popovich Formation. This ore body is located from the 2,100 to 2,700 foot level. There is no doubt that deep mining operations will be the focus for future operations in Nevada and there is some speculation that these deep resources will at least match all the gold that has been mined and is presently on the books of the mining companies (hundreds of millions of ounces).
In conclusion, deeper may be better. The deep drilling program at Cove-McCoy is underway and the first high-grade vein has been encountered at the 1,800 foot level. The future will provide the complete story.
After this article we received additional information from Robbert;
Willem,
First I was somewhat confused with the variety of deposit formations at Cove-McCoy. They had a skarn deposit at McCoy, an oxide and sulfide deposit at Cove, a possible buried porphyry deposit and a local intrusive complex in the form of the Fish Creek Mountains. It was rather difficult to determine the main source of the gold mineralization, to say the least. Then I discovered pluton formations. Magma chambers develop from 5 to 50km below the earth's crust. They really come into vogue when plate tectonics weaken and stretch the crust. The magma chambers coincidentally form in large numbers during that time period and push much higher into the thinning and weakened crust. As the tops of the chambers cool, plutons are put in place in the surrounding rock. Different magma chambers may cool and reboil over long periods of time. Formations of dykes, sills and skarns develop and some may broach the surface when crustal plates are sheared, intruded and folded into different patterns. Evidence has now provided confirmation that plutons have been a major event in Nevada geology. And they were discovered at the 1km level. Which brings us back to the deeper depths at Cove-McCoy. A mineralized zone may have been formed at the 2km level by a pluton-related event. The plate tectonics certainly formed the Fish Creek Mountains and, coincidentally, could have produced a porphyry intrusion. There is a major north-south contact zone just a few hundred meters to the west of Cove-McCoy. The combination of these events seems very realistic to me and makes me tend to believe that Victoria is on track to a very major discovery. The claim staking and mobilization of drill rigs is further confirmation that the project is starting to be fast tracked towards development.
More on this geological concept from Robbert;
I have been doing a lot of research lately on magmatic chambers, porphyry deposits, dykes and sills amongst other occurrences in geologic formations. I was particularly interested in these topics after reading abstracts on 'Late Eocene Tectonism and Magmatism in the Great Basin....' and 'Wallrock Alteration Associated with the Chukar Footwall.....'. My research leads me to believe that the plate tectonics in Nevada and the simultaneous genesis of magma chambers developed by pressure and heat created multiple plutons in Nevada and it looks like many of the plutons converged in the area of the Battle Mountain mining district were Victoria is drilling right now. These magma chambers seemed to have multiple occurrences of boiling and likely radiated new boiling zones above their chambers as well as creating buried porphyry deposits at the same time. The chambers were very deep, anywhere from 7km and deeper. But the radiated plutons and porphyries were created at different levels up to and including some that broke out at surface. I believe that Victoria is collecting the evidence that pluton zones as well as porphyry zones below Cove-McCoy were part of the development phase of the surface deposits at Cove and McCoy. I think they are trying to home in on the high grade porphyry zone or the high grade pluton-originated zone at depth. I would assume that they expect it to be at the level of about 2km, give or take 1km. I would also expect that some very high grade feeder veins may be encountered such as similar ones were encountered at Deep Post. I believe that the Victoria geologists are light years ahead of us with the development of these new concepts and I expect that we are likely entering a new phase of mineral discovery in Nevada.
Regards, Bob
For more info;
Victoria Resource Corporation
Ian MacLean
Vice President, Investor Relations
(604) 681-837
or
Victoria Resource Corporation
Kerry Suffolk
Manager, Investor Relations
(604) 681-8371
E-mail: investor@victoriaresource.com
Website: www.victoriaresourcecorp.com