Looking Back to K-3 at Kabba with Tim Marsh, Bell Copper $BC Looking back at the locations of old drill holes, you often wonder "why did they drill there?" Sometimes it seems clear enough, but it's always hard to put yourself into their headspace at the time -- what did they know and what they expect to learn from those holes? It was a treat to discuss all this with Dr. Tim Marsh, President & CEO of Bell Copper (TSXV:BCU) in a recent interview published here (https://www.scribd.com/document/371410919/Round-2-Newton-Interviews-Bell-Copper-on-Kabba), which I have been compensated to prepare and distribute.
The 2013 resource estimate from Bell Copper is full of good information on what they did, why, and what next. The first holes, K-1, was drilled in July 2017 "to test for a due East displacement of the target porphyry", as in the technical report. You can see how holes K-1 through K-6 fall along a line pointing eastward in this picture from the report showing drill hole locations. 
Results "demonstrated that concept to be erroneous" and it wasn't until public aeromagnetic data showed a north-eastward movement in nearby rock unit that Tim took a fateful walk one day and started to see outcrop that matched the footwall in the Hualapai Mountains. Drilling of revised model returned favourable results up to hole K-10, but still no discovery hole.
There's lots to discuss around all this, but I asked Tim about hole K-3 in particular. I thought it was surprising to see it collared back to the west since K-1 and K-2 gave indications the thing moved farther than first believed. Tim said, "Well, that hole was permitted." Apparently things were running hot in the exploration business and they had to keep the drill active while they waited for permits to drill K-4 or else risk losing access to the drill.
As things pick up again in the exploration industry, I hope we see the US regulators show an ability to be effective, move quickly to get things done, have some accountability for their own failures, and have some teeth for businesses that are behaving badly. There has been a change in tone at the top of US politics and I hope it helps encourage those animal spirits I see stirring amongst miners in the southwestern USA.
I went on to ask Tim if he learned much from hole K-3 and said "At the time, it was our only encouraging drill hole to show the public we had an intersection. I've forgotten it now, but I think it was approximately 70 meters of .015 moly. It is typical of footwall mineralization with good potassic alteration, nice looking porphyry quartz veins, and quartz magnetite veins. It gave us a good look at the unoxidized part of the footwall." I'm surely that raised some eyebrows at the time and led some people to wonder if this crew knew what they were doing at Kabba!
After they drilled K-4 through K-6, Tim went back to the drawing board. That's when he found the aeromagnetic survey data from the USGS and figured the slip vector was northeastwards rather than due east. In the years since, they have drilled a few holes in that direction. Most recently, they mentioned gold intercepts from hole K-17 that was located nearby holes K-9 and K-10.
Holes K-9 and K-10 have a good story or two behind them, which I discussed with Tim in our new interviews published here (https://www.scribd.com/document/371410919/Round-2-Newton-Interviews-Bell-Copper-on-Kabba). For now, I will merely point out that little block of land that Bell Copper doesn't own right above K-9 and K-10 as it could be a problem if the porphyry proves to be hiding right underneath it!
I asked Tim about that block and he said, "That piece of ground was purchased by a lawyer. When he bought some ground in the area, he bought the mineral rights. We don’t have the mineral rights for that area. We actually drove K17 right on the south boundary of that block and it's now pretty clear that the little rectangle is not materially interesting to Bell Copper."
The gold mineralization that K-17 hit in the oxidized section of the hangingwall is presumably distal to the main part of the copper porphyry they are looking for. The process of elimination can take years to play out in a situation like this, which makes me all the more grateful to be able to parachute into the story now when the ideas have been revised many times by the same geologist. Tim's dedication to this project is inspiring.