I just got a question as to whether I thought that Kevin was getting a little ahead of himself by stating that the ADL veins have “well over 1 million ounces of gold”. First of all, management told us already that they figured on blocking out reserves in Q-3 which is now two-thirds gone. The one misconception that I think is out there is that you need drill holes in order to block out Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources. The short answer is absolutely not. What a P. Geo needs to do is to create a 3-dimensional model, sometimes referred to as block modeling and sometimes as “wire frame” models. The data derived cam come from any combination of drill holes, existent workings, trench sampling, etc. The single most valuable source of information by far is PRIOR PRODUCTION.
If you look at the Don Luis 1 Vein as a massive sheet of plywood. We know that the strike length at surface is at least 1.7 Km. The average width is going to be somewhere in between 0.5 and perhaps 3 meters down deep. The average depth would probably be set at perhaps 1,000 meters based on what we know about mesothermal veins, prior IP/IR studies, other geophysics tests, etc. Using the average width of 1 meter, you’ve got a volume of 1.7 km length times 1 Km depth times .001 Km average width. This comes out to a volume of 1.7 million cubic meters. Somebody recently posted from an interview of Eric Sprott wherein he recommended this same approach. We know from prior production efforts that the ore present has a density or “specific gravity” of 3.25 tonnes per cubic meter. This represents a vein with about 5.5 million tonnes of material. If the entire vein averaged 45 gpt gold then this would represent 248 million grams of gold. Since one Troy ounce is equal to 31.1 grams, this would represent 7.99 million ounces of gold. However, if only one third of that working face is vein material, then you need to divide that number by 3 resulting in 2.66 million ounces of gold. If the average vein width comes in at 2-meters then you’d have 5.32 million ounces of gold. This Sprott method is crude and should only be used as a screening tool.
The host rock which is a cousin of granodiorite known as quartz monzodiorite because of the presence of orthoclase feldspar has a density/SP of 2.9. You’ve also got gold with a density of 19, magnetite, hematite and pyrite all with an SP of a little over 5. When combined it comes in at 3.25 tonnes per cubic meter. This 3.25 figure is critical to remember because when you’re working with “blast cycles” which free up 18 cubic meters of rock (an adit measuring 3 meters by 3 meters and a blast depth of 2 meters) and working with grades measured in grams per tonne i.e. 45 gpt gold, it’s important to know the weight of the rubble resulting from one blast cycle i.e. 18 cubic meters times 3.25 Tonnes per cubic meter or 58.5 Tonnes of “rubble” resulting from 1 blast. If, for example, the width of the vein is 2-meters, as it was in the case which Kevin proposed to us a while back, then two thirds of that rubble or 39 Tonnes grades 45 gpt and the other third pretty much zero. In this scenario, one blast frees up 1,755 grams of gold or 56 ounces. Whether you believe that or not depends upon whether or not you trust the 45 gpt average grade figure and the 2-meter width figure. The rest of the math is pretty straight forward.
Do the Auryn P. Geos have enough data to crank out a preliminary MR/MR figure? Well, the exhaustive trenching program did a good job of telling us about the top of that sheet of plywood. The recent 18 sample results posted by management give us a good look at the side of that sheet of plywood as seen from these samples taken from “Shaft #1” of the Don Luis 1 Vein. Seven shafts have been completed there. The past production results give us a peek at what was located within the 7 horizontal “levels” present at the old Fortuna Mine. The new “Fortuna Adit gives us a pretty good view of what’s going on at the 150-meter depth level below the plateau. This intersected the Don Luis 1 Vein on June 23, 2021. The past IP/IR studies gave us a pretty good “X-ray view” of the vein down to about the 400 or so meter depth level. So, yes, I’d say that the P. Geos and the software they use will be in a position to give us a pretty good glimpse of preliminary MR/MR. Again, you don’t need drill holes, ESPECIALLY IN A VEIN DEPOSIT, in order to block out MR/MR. For a porphyry type target, absolutely, you need drill holes spaced at 50-100 meters in order to get a good peek.
Remember, so far I’m only talking about the Don Luis 1 Vein. This is where we have the most information available that Ni-43-101 as well as the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy’s (“CIM’s”) Standards and Guidelines for Mineral Reserve/Mineral Resource mandate be available. The information available for the Caren Mine/Merlin 1 Vein isn’t far behind that of the DL 1 Vein. The two structures that management refers to as the “massive” veins, i.e. the Leopoldo Antonino and the Don Enrique which both exceed 2-meters in width AT SURFACE (in a mesothermal vein system famous for veins widening at depth) have data available from surface trenching but not much more. So, is Kevin getting too far out over his skis in his statement that “the ADL vein system has well over 1 million ounces of gold”? I don’t think so.
Let’s shift gears for a second. Nobody has said Jack Diddly about the recent results posted by Auryn on the website regarding the results of those 18 samples mostly taken from “Shaft #1” over at the Don Luis 1 Vein. Here’s a link to the recent results posted:
https://aurynminingcorp.com/dl-map/
First of all, we don’t have the exact references to the vertical level from which these were taken within the shaft. We know that management has dewatered and demudded down to about the 2nd to 3rd level from surface of 7 total horizontal “levels”. How would you describe the results from samples 12 or so through 18. I’d say, pretty impressive, if not “bonanza” type grades. Why did they go down that shaft and do the sampling? Reason #1 might have been so that they could get a good look at the side of that sheet of plywood so that they could block out more MR/MR. Are the MR/MR results going to be somewhat impressive? Perhaps. Another reason might have been to corroborate the production numbers that SMFL posted over 30 years. These were somewhere in between 64 and 92 gpt OVER 30 STRAIGHT YEARS. Now zoom out and look at a metaphorical cross section through the entire vein system from the Caren Mine to the west (left when viewed from the south) to the eastern terminus of the veins over by the Don Luis 1 Vein. What do you see in common? Bonanza grades at a depth of about 60 to perhaps 140 meters of depth.
Do you think this represents one of those “boiling zones” we’ve been talking about which average about 300-meters in vertical extent? Umm, yes I think so. Is there a bunch of the chalcedony form of quartz that denotes the rapid cooling of hydrothermal fluids resulting in the breaking of the bond between gold and sulfur allowing the gold to pile up in some pretty crazy concentrations? Umm, yes. In a “vein system” of somewhat parallel veins with similar characteristics which share a common underlying magma chamber do you think that the other 4 or 5 major veins that we don’t know much about (except at surface from the trenching program which had similar results to the DL 1 Vein and Merlin 1 Vein) might have corresponding vertical zones of somewhat crazy type veins? Umm, maybe but we’ll know soon enough. Might this “Shaft #1” area with the crazy grades be a good place to commence production? Since management can produce from any site they so choose, might the initial several years of production be concentrating on some pretty high-grade ore?
From a geo-modeling point of view, the whole picture is starting to gel. There can be no certainty at this point, but since the ore-bearing hydrothermal fluids and gases came from one of these absolutely gigantic magma chambers and since porphyries are basically relict magma chambers and the areas above their roof/carapace, might these “porphyries” have a decent shot at being somewhat high-grade as far as porphyries go? Porphyries are typically low-grade but huge and their economics come from their size and their ability to be open pitted using bulk mining methodologies to mine. It’s time to go back, once again, to Dollar Tree with the G-Kids. You might look at their stock, I think they’re about to have a good quarter!
