RE: RE: RE: From Cow's 2006 43-101 Red herrings into red flags… and back again
I see a number of attempts to divert attention away from the how and the why at Cow Mtn. with authors throwing red herrings into a fog they themselves create to try to persuade the unwary that the dead fish is actually a “red flag”. Sometimes we also call that activity “smoke and mirrors”. Whether this was done deliberately or not remains to be seen. In recent days attempts to question the 43-101 have sounded shrill, more and more like unbalanced conspiracy theories.
One such attempt at obfuscation was to take the resource estimates for a probable shallow open pit defined primarily by percussion drilling in the 1980s and suggest that it could not have been possible to find a much larger gold deposit around and underneath it over 30 years later. This denial flies in the face of a vastly expanded diamond drill program using six drill rigs capable of drilling 3-5 times deeper than previous campaigns and also moving them into other zones that had been researched, mapped and tested in the Cariboo Gold Quartz Mine years and again in the 1990s and 2000s. These targets included areas where historic mineable ore grades had been .6 oz/ton in the 1940s and 50s, and were correctly projected to also exist also in quartz-vein stockwork and pyrite replacement ore bodies stretching from the tailings pond to BC Vein under seven different steeply dipping cross-cutting faults along trend. Parallel and sub-parallel zones of gold mineralization were also encountered in rich zones. The only thing that’s stretched here is the size and depth of the present resource compared with the small pit that was proposed above the Sanders Zone 30 years ago.
And now, the inability (or unwillingness) to recognize these obvious developments only leads to more ridiculous assumptions: if the books aren’t being cooked by the eminent resource estimator Peter George, then the lesser-known geologist(s) in charge of the drilling programs “must have” played tricks and submitted spurious data, conspiring with management to create an “impossible” resource estimate. But these are the “only explanations” for their own denial, of course. The integrity of the entire exploration team and, indirectly, even BoD members such as ex-Teck/Cominco CEO Norm Anderson are called into question here for being involved in the project, but a witch hunt is never a dull thing.
In contrast to the conspiracy theories, one simple explanation these writers haven’t considered (again) is that this company was given unhelpful (restrictive) exploration recommendations by the likes of GH Giroux and lost a full decade of substantial mining property advancement at Cow Mtn. by focusing only on a small near-surface open pit model from 1995 to 2007 and the resultant attention and resources were then focused almost exclusively on Bonanza Ledge from 2000-2010. Now that would explain things. And what drilling did Giroux recommend in his original 2000 report? He merely suggested twinning “some of the higher grade underground percussion drill holes” and blocks. In 2006 (revised) he reiterates the program and includes underground holes with negative dips: “With 2 exceptions, all holes are drilled with a negative dip and generally have an azimuth of 300 or 120 degrees” from 1200 level workings.
In 2007, International Wayside followed the surface drilling recommendations of Giroux only, but one of the last drill holes hit high grade replacement ore and changed the exploration scope thereafter. From the Feb 28 2008 NR:
Frank Callaghan commented: "Intersecting this replacement style mineralization is exciting for the Company and shareholders due to its high-grade nature coupled with today's gold prices". Replacement style mineralization averaging 0.67 oz/t Au was mined extensively at the past producing Island Mountain Mine, situated approximately 3 km northwest of Cow Mountain along strike, but has never been actively pursued at Cow Mountain, where the majority of recovered ore (97% of the total ore tons) was from quartz vein style mineralization”.
“The Company's proposed exploration in 2008 will include an extensive follow-up surface and underground diamond drilling program on large gaps on the Mucho Oro, Bonanza Ledge, Goldfinch, Butts, Sanders, Rainbow and No.1 Zones, Wilf's Showing and Wells Trend on Barkerville and Cow Mountains to explore mainly for the Bonanza Ledge style of gold mineralization, as well as a subsequent follow-up program to further develop the mineral resource within and above the historic workings in Cow Mountain.”
The 2011 deep drilling program was hugely succeesful in finding high grade Island Mtn. style replacement gold zones and additional quartz vein stockworks beneath the 7 fault zones across Cow Mtn. and the geological team is to be commended for this achievement.