Hard to believeAttributed to Kaiser posted on HotCopper
Tonnage Note: The plan view tonnage footprint is a triangle 5 km by 3.3 km with a 6 km diagonal tracing the projection of the conglomerate bed daylighting under a Mt Roe Basalt. At this point only 1,000 m of daylighting conglomerate is exposed at surface; overburden to the northeast obscures the exact edge. The conglomerate is a combination of mafic clasts and sandy matrix. Basalt has a specific gravity of 2.8-3.0, which combined with the less dense matrix makes 2.6 a plausible choice. This triangular bed would have a surface area of (5 x 3.3 x 0.5) of 8.25 million sq m, a volume of 8.25 cubic m per 1 m of thickness, times 2.6 for a tonnage of 21.5 million tonnes per vertical m of thickness. Scout drilling within a 400 m by 200 m grid has established a true width thickness range of 4-15 m of conglomerate between crystalline basement and Mt Roe basalt. The lower part of the bed is dominated by mafic clasts while quartz clasts are present in the upper part of the thicker parts of the bed. Field observations at the surface where the bed's edge is obliquely exposed reveal that fossicker activity in the form of small pits to dig up nuggets beeped by a metal detector fades where the quartz cobbles show up. The basement surface undulates which explains the varying thickness. QH has commented that the less thick beds are all mafic clasts which suggests a prospective gold bearing horizon of at least 4 m thickness. On this basis the tonnage footprint would be 86 million tonnes of potentially gold bearing conglomerate. 2 rigs are on site for a core scout drilling program that will delineate the geometry of the conglomerate bed as well as the proportion of all mafic to mixed mafic-quartz clast composition. An 80 million tonne limit has been assumed for this OV.