Orenada - Additional Observations Orenada was drilled in the past as strictly a low-grade bulk deposit. The resource was profiled in the same manner in 2009.
No special considerations were given the to high-grade quartz veins, as little info was known about these veins at the time. Alexandria performed a study in 2015 that demonstrated a suite of high-grade quartz veins sits within the deposit (going down) - between the low-grade bulk (ore) material. Alexandria tested this theory in 2015 with 2 successful drill holes.
A full drill program is underway to further profile this new resource model - about 50% of the holes have been drilled, with logging, assaying, analysis and release of results all pending.
Observations
1) Both of the 2015 confirmation holes were good, but I find the first one (DH OAX-15-054) to be especially interesting.
There was a core section of
27.8m of 3.24 g/t gold (part of a longer core hit throughout the length of the drill hole). This 27.8m section included 3 (separate) very high grade quartz veins:
*
10.47 g/t Au over 1.70m
*
18.60 g/t Au over .70m
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17.03 g/t Au over 3.14m
As a side note, earlier in the hole (before the 27.8m section profiled above) there was also a vein of:
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15.15 g/t Au over 1.60m
I think the Orenada deposit has many more high grade intersections like these, especially at depth. I think this will eventually lead to a decent size underground resource, in addition to the open pit resource of course.
One concern that people have with narrow vein resources is rock dilution. I don`t think Orenada will have much of a problem with dilution, as it is a disseminated (bulk tonnage) deposit. The economical lower grade gold (say, 1.0 - 2.0 g/t Au) that surrounds the high grade quartz veins add further meat to the veins, thus making them wider. Many narrow high-grade deposits do not have disseminated/stockwork ore material surrounding them, rather they are surrounded with barren rock. For example, when tunneling through underground at Orenada we would be able to minimize the dilution by processing much of the material in the tunnel area - as the disseminated body will likely not have a lot of barren areas, at least not within the mineralized (portion of the shear zone) structure.
I recently posted some actual historical high grade results from Orenada 2 and 4. I believe they all have a chance to be high grade quartz veins, similar to the (2015) example from above. I think there are plenty others yet to be drilled or identified at Orenada, as well. I think all of this will help with the transformation of Orenada, and perhaps make it more marketable for satellite development/production within the Val d´Or area, eventually.
Here are the past high grade drill results highlighted from one of my recent postings on this subject matter:
Orenada 2:
* DH OAX-07-16
11.44 g/t gold over 8.15m (drilled width, not true width)
* DH AAX-07-11
5.29 g/t gold over 12.90m (drilled width)
* DH OAX-07-32
4.07 g/t gold over 8.65m (drilled width)
* DH OAX-08-51
4.08 g/t gold over 6.00m
* DH 407-22 (historical hole)
8.12 g/t gold over 4.87m (drilled width)
Orenada 4:
* DH 407-84-17 (historical drill hole)
12.0 g/t gold over 13.08m (includes 17.0 g/t over 8.93m)
* DH AAX-07-12 (2007 drill hole)
7.90 g/t gold over 12.55m
* DH OAX-15-054 (2015 drill hole)
17.03 g/t gold over 3.4m
* DH OU-5-20 (historical drill hole)
8.8 g/t gold over 7.5m
2) As noted, the 2009 Orenada resource was put together strictly based on Orenada being a (evenly distributed) disseminated deposit. As such, I believe there were no special weighings (including extrapolated extensions) considered for the high grade quartz veins. As a result, I believe that the 2009 resource profiled less ounces relative to what is actually there. In addition to contributions from the new drillings, I believe the new model will rightsize this problem. I think we could see a meaningful increase in both resource ounces and gold grade, with issuance of the next 43-101 report.
There were 2 NR`s for hole OAX-15-054 in 2015. The first one is the initial NR and the second one was issued after additional assaying work was done:
https://www.marketwired.com/press-release/alexandria-extends-zone-high-grade-gold-veins-orenada-with-34-meters-grading-1703-g-tsx-venture-azx-2015191.htm
https://www.marketwired.com/press-release/alexandria-drills-high-grade-gold-veins-at-orenada-including-253-g-t-gold-over-09m-tsx-venture-azx-2012368.htm