That’s a very interesting set of pictures. The perspective confused me for a while.
Here are a couple of ADL pictures, one I produced a long time ago. The perspective of #1 is generally looking NORTH with the Gordon Breccia behind you. You can see the trenching Auryn has done along the Merlin #1 vein. The second image was one I created a long time ago, which looks back toward the south and which identified the work of Auryn in that area and the building which appeared in Dec. 2012.
The important thing to note is the 3 adits over the north edge of the plateau, which I have shown in Google Earth before, and how steep the slope is there. Obviously that side of the mountain makes for difficult working conditions. The road to get there had to wind around in a loop and try and find an approachable path. The building which appeared in 2012 was placed off of this loop in a little “switchback” which put the building / trailer on flatter terrain.
I expected Auryn to be working in one of the 3 original adits - two of which they described earlier as being nearly collapsed. Many of the adit gold samples came from one of the adits, the middle one, I think.
But the images on Medinah’s Facebook page do not match up to that north side of the mountain. Those pictures clearly are not from that spot.
But if you imagine swinging around toward the east and look west right at where that building is in 2012, and a new adit appearing right next to it - hmmm - looks like a pretty good match.
So my interpretation is that they chose an easier spot to work from and their two months of prep work are really creating a new adit that will go from east to west and intersect the Merlin 1 in approximately 2 months. The distance from Google Earth appears to be a little more than 500 meters. 5000tpm ore will come out at this point. Obviously it is much easier to get haul trucks into that spot than to that steep north face. We do not know if or where any local concentration is to occur. Or maybe that will be later.
NOTE the proximity of the new adit and the building/camp from 2012 in proximity to Merlin 2 and Merlin 3. Also recall the black dashed line is the approximate boundary of Auryn’s environmental study they announced a year or so ago.
Funny how Auryn just happened to put that building and equipment in just the right spot 3.5 years ago isn’t it? hmmm
Not a lot really. The location is somewhat predictable by the favorable terrain.
On the other hand, looking backward it seems pretty likely to me that Auryn had a pretty good idea several years ago where they wanted to take this thing and it just took Medinah this long to basically get out of the way, or be offered acceptable terms, if you want to look at it from the other side.
And looking forward, I would say Auryn has big plans for that area where the building and the adit are. Notice from the Medinah pictures they added some new road that wraps around to where the camera is in picture 5 of 7. I suspect there will be a lot more going on in that area in the years ahead as they funnel ore from all across the Merlin / Fortuna area into that spot. It would make sense that is where they plan ultimately to concentrate ore before shipping for processing, imo.
The spot that is left out in the cold of this picture, literally and figuratively, is the LDM …
Auryn has said so little about the LDM. The above complex being their vision for the short term explains that. This was the most obvious path to a self-funding project from which they can explore the rest of the mountain, the PN, the LDM, the Gordon breccia, etc.
Q: what is this new road that goes east of the new adit to the area where the camera is taking that picture? Note the white rock used to make the road bed right there in picture 5 of 7.
Guess: This is a road extension from the Merlin 3 / Fortuna area where Auryn says they expect production to start in 2017. Note in the Google Earth image from February you can see the very light path / road used when they trenched the Merlin 3 area. It originates from the Fortuna area and is headed right toward the new adit area. I am guessing that in the next GE images in Sept or Oct or so that we’ll see that road / path was extended out to meet up with the new adit work area.
This makes sense if you want to bring all the ore to a central spot before shipping off of the mountain.
For those not following I-Hub (I don’t blame you), the following is an amusing exchange I had with a “new” (read: regurgitated) basher on I-Hub regarding mining companies and social media:
HR,
Your continuing to counter blatant mis-informed falsehoods portrayed by various posters on I-Hub with quality information is greatly appreciated. Thank You for bringing this last post to shareholders attention over here. Some I-Hub posters just need to be educated and informed.
I think the camp and a lot of the pictures are of the LDM area. (Note how green the vegetation is which is odd for the higher elevations for this time of year.) Recall that Auryn has been using the LDM camp for quite awhile and are now probably expanding it. It makes sense to put it there as it is usually below the snow line and utilities are already setup. Redirecting...
Speaking of snow…the next 7 days look fine on the Alto.
nah, serves me right for speculating after a 4-hr sleep night at 5 in the morning. lesson learned (again). keep the speculation to a minimum; Auryn will move it forward.
Rick,
As I commend you for your efforts as I have in the past, you will NEVER make headway with those that get PAID to bash this stock. Others may learn a thing or two that are uneducated and do NOT get PAID to bash. Other than that its continued noise from the bashing community and will continue to be such even once MDMN becomes more than a sub .25 stock. Hope things are well with you my friend. Enjoy.
To anyone who would like to respond, does anybody have any idea when Auryn will be in a position to make an announcement about estimated reserves? We know that Auryn has extensively explored the property however I just do not know what is required for the estimation of reserves. I am guessing that we are not close to determining reserves.
