RE:RE:RE:Golden Joint ZoneYou and I are seeing this almost identical. Unless the underlying rock is unbelievably stable (which I highly doubt considering the underlying geology), there is no way they will be able to trench beyond 50M, and most likely 35M. There are only a few places found so far that look good in that shallow of a deposit.
Also, if you approach this by trench mining, you can't chase the stringers out of fear of compromising your highwall.
I saw where you posted that they are allowing 1.4M stopes. I am not questioning you on that, but how in the hell do they actually do that? That is nuts! Technology in CMs must have changed in the last few years (assuming they are doing their development with a CM).
But all the other people wanting an open pit, I don't think you realize the amount of needless overburden you are going to have to remove if you try to chase these deep veins from a pit mine. Underground mining becomes not only the last environmentally impactful, but also the more cost efficient approach.
Retiredgeo wrote: These gold deposits fall into the category of "narrow veins". Narrow veins seldom have halos of low grade gold (some can have stringers of gold running off into the host rock). You can trench narrow veins from the surface but pursuing them at depth always requires underground mines, unless their dip is very shallow.