Ron Coombes"The project sat for over a hundred years until we went and we took a look at it and sampled the underground. One stope that we sampled, had a little over a meter of 46 grams of gold. That's not bad for a stope that's been mined out. We haven't gotten down to the two bottom levels they were in, when it shut down, because those lower levels are still required to be de-watered.
Anyway, it's a pretty famous property. We're pretty excited about it, so we acquired it. During the past three years, we systematically sampled it, scientifically, did proper surveys of the underground, did an airborne survey, so we would have correct information, so when we commence forward with our drilling program, we can actually hit the identified targets properly, because they're only three to four meters wide.
The trend itself stretches from one end of California to the other. Of course, some of the more famous ones, in history, would have been the Empire, which is in Grass Valley. In the Sonora, California area, where our property is located, there are numerous mines around us that have produced in excess of a million ounces. Carson Hill, which is still operating as an aggregate mill, I have heard is still recovering gold out of their aggregate mine. I've heard there are some veins that are protruding the granitic body there, called the Calaveras. At times, I suspect they're making more money on the gold than they are on the aggregate. We're sitting in the middle of numerous gold producers, many of which had been shut down for a long time and don't have proper geology. It's a great area, untapped for future development of resources.
We have neighboring properties that are currently in production. Our property is one of the more famous properties in the area, from when it was in production. It produced some pretty significant numbers. The very first stope produced some 30,000 ounces at 15 ounces per ton. That's a pretty nice number. The one below it, the next stope, recovered 50,000 ounces.
Somebody told me a long time ago, "Where do you find gold?" Gold is where gold is. There's been lots of gold taken out of the ground on this property. We believe there's a lot more. These types of deposits are known to go down to great depths. The primary mine, which was mined on the property, was the Providence, it's been mined down to 1,200. There's lots of room for future development, down to the 3,000-foot level. There's still even lots of room between the stopes and along strike for new discoveries on the property."
2021 should be an incredible year for PHD!