Population gold grade and Mining Gold Grade There is a big difference .
The population gold grade is that grade for the entirety of the mineralized gold resource within the defined drill area.
This includes all of the waste ore...including zero intercepts .
For orogenics m about 90% of the tonnage within the defined drilled area is waste rock.
In my latest post using gram meters model , the grades used...less than a gram in all cases.. are those including all of the waste rock.
These grades include all core assays including zero intercepts ...ie POPULATION grade
Now, when you do a FS, you will do sufficient definition and grade control drilling such that all or nearly all of the waste ore is excluded, leaving only those tonnage that contains economic grades of ore defined above a cut off grade.,.this is the MINED grade
In QWN 10 prospects , the economic grade ore averages about 11-12 grams per ton ....The Population grade is just about 0.5 grams per ton.
As an example, the tonnage of V Lake ore within the defined pits to be mined is 609 million tons containing 5.1 m ounces ....a population grade of about 0.25 gms per ton .
Only 51 million tons of this was determined to be econimc and sent to the mill to be processed...about 8% ....at a MINED grade of about 1.8 grams per ton .
I post this distinction because of the confused discussion on CEO.ca in which no distinction is being made between population and mined grade