Gold miningIn mining you want to leave as much barren rock (waste rock) in the ground as possible and remove only that which is ore. If your gold is concentrated in a thin, steeply dipping plane such as the Keats-Baseline fault you want to remove only that thin plane and leave everything else behind. This is best done by trenching at the surface and by underground mining methods at depth. The dark red plane can be clearly seen in Melissa's recent video. All of the KMZ and Iceberg gold lies within that plane. The gold is not evenly distributed within the plane. At the KMZ the zone of high grade forms an arc which plunges at depth. At Iceberg the better gold is to the NE.
If your gold is disseminated throughout a large blob of rock (Marathon, Snowline etc) an open pit is the way to go perhaps with an underground mine at the bottom of the pit.
The time line for mining at both Queensway and Valley is 5-7 years. In both cases a major would like to see the property derisked ahead of time. Snowline may be able to do so before NFG (it's deposit is much simpler) and vanish from the map sooner.
Should NFG hold on to the entire Queensway property? It all boils down to money. If someone were to offer Collin 100 million today for Queensway south he would probably accept.