Gray rock, purple rock, green rock, heck I don’t care if it is pink; just get the stuff processed so the share price can begin to recover. All this geogeek speak is fascinating but at this point, it does us no good. Sorry for the rant but seeing MDMN trading at $0.0073 is not a pleasant experience considering I have shares with a cost basis of $0.07!
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TSXVTrader: I am reminded of a quote by Lou Holtz.
“Don’t bother anyone else about your problems. 80% don’t care and the other 20% are glad you have them”.
We all have cost basis much higher than it is now. Ask Rich if you want to feel better about your cost basis.
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My statement was not intended to be a pity party for me. I understand no one cares about my cost basis so I apologize for the rant. I’m hopeful that Kevin will put out a PR that provides clarity on the way forward and Auryn puts out a PR that details some production numbers.
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Cordova said at the informational meeting that they hope to hit the 5,000 ounces of gold by the end of the year even though they have less shipments of trucks being delivered because of the higher grades that they expect…2 months to go we will see…we need news…almost a month since meeting and they were in production then…at least that’s what they said…
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I would hope if you “knew” either of them were crooks you would not have invested at all. Mining is risky enough without having criminals mis-managing
the equity associated with the asset
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Hi EZ,
Thanks for the post and the 2 slides from the AMC PowerPoint deck. Your top slide, #9 from their deck, has some important information in it that might go unnoticed. First of all, finding over 3 gpt gold AT SURFACE in a low to intermediate sulphidation state epithermal vein system is pretty good stuff. A lot of deposits like this in a porphyritic environment have an acid leached barren “lithocap” or “iron hat” overlaying it which is made up of iron oxides or iron hydroxides with little gold or copper in it. At the Caren/Merlin/Fortuna area we apparently had just the right amount of erosion to get rid of parts of the probable past barren lithocap and thereby expose the veins making it to surface without eroding them which is so often the case.
On the northern downslope off of the plateau where the 4 adits (1,2,2A and 3) are located, first of all AMC got about 7 gpt gold in an outcropping where the plateau started to descend above adit #1 at about 1,950 meters above sea level. Then they ran into bonanza grades in the 4 adits especially 2, 2A and 3 and to a lesser extent adit 1. Clearly they were into the historical “boiling zone” and/or an area of supergene enrichment.
The same phenomenon seems to be setting up at the southern end of the plateau. After averaging about 3 gpt gold ALL OF THE WAY ACROSS THE PLATEAU, in trenches M-1 A and M-1 C they got 10 gpt gold right at the initiation of the downslope off of the southern terminus of the plateau. This is analogous to the 7 gpt result they got where the northern downslope meets the plateau. The grades seem to be improving in a somewhat linear fashion with depth.
You can see how tight the “contour lines” are on that topographical map in the area peripheral to the plateau. This means that they can’t do any more trenching further down the hill on both the north and south downslopes; it’s too steep. Otherwise I’m sure they would have done so with the results they were getting on and near the plateau. On the southern downslope off of the plateau they switched over to geochemical surface soil sampling and the results were excellent but now with favorable Cu and moly grades.
The pattern here is reminiscent of what was found at the Andacollo Gold and Andacollo Copper mines to our north (La Serena) which make up part of the same 91 million year old Chilean “Early Cretaceous Porphyry Belt” located in the Chilean Coastal Range. Geoscientists love it when they have the ability to predict geomodels with the help of nearby similarly aged deposits within well known geological “belts”.
We have to keep in mind that the reason these bonanza grades were found in those adits on the northern downslope has to do with the fact that artisanal miners could see the outline of the vein as it descended down the northern downslope. The vein is less obvious on the plateau due to oxidation, weathering and heavy alteration especially near the Fortuna Veins. The artisanal miners probably saw some shiny rocks in parts of the vein and decided to explore the area. At the time there were no field spectrometers or geophysics available.
To my knowledge, there is no geoscientific reason why the gold grades would be any higher (or lower) at the adit sites where the vein exits from the mountain than at similar depths elsewhere under the plateau. The bonanza grade gold is typically going to be deposited at a depth where the hydrothermal fluids were allowed to boil and break their bonds to sulfur. This “boiling zone” would be expected to be somewhat flat underneath a flat plateau. In order for the fluids to cool all of the way down to their boiling point (sounds weird, I know) they need to get closer to surface and find faulted structures so that they can depressurize.
When you have a situation like that at the M 1 Vein where you have consistently high gold grades AT SURFACE over an 1,800 meter length and bonanza grades at the 125 or so meter depth level below the plateau on the northern downslope of the mountain the first thing you want to do is to try to determine if those bonanza grades are “representative” of what might be found at similar depths across the plateau and down the southern downslope.
The consistency of the surface grades across the plateau (+/- 3 gpt gold) and the fact that the surface grades are increasing with even a slight drop in elevation down the northern AND southern downslopes off of the plateau is not necessarily diagnostic of anything but perhaps it is “highly suggestive” of “continuity”.
The Merlin 1 vein probably continues south and transitions into the Pegaso Nero porphyritic area. The M-1 Vein and the Gordon breccia area “vector”/track directly into the Pegaso Nero area where the “soil sampling” (too steep to trench) revealed monster moly numbers and very strong copper numbers especially near the 2 breccias located there i.e. the tourmaline bx and the “intrusive” bx. The PN deposit plus the Gordon and associated breccias to its north and the Merlin 1 Vein are all pretty much collinear as if they are all parts of the same very large (regional?) “fault zone” which trends from NNW to SSE. I’m not sure if people realize it but those impressive moly SURFACE GRADES extend from the plateau southward down the mountain for at least 4 KILOMETERS.
Due to the inordinately high melting point of moly, if you have it at surface you can’t be very far from the underlying porphyritic stock/dike swarm through which the moly bearing hydrothermal fluids made their entrance (Lowell-Guilbert). The moly will hug the core of the porphyry as too does the “potassic alteration” zone which is exactly what we have at the PN in the form of the potassium feldspar found there.
In 1996 Gana et. al. did a “regional” reconnaissance of this entire area which revealed a massive amount of hydrothermal alteration near the PN and to its west. The volume of hydrothermal fluids that needed to come to the surface and induce alteration of that extent had to come through some kind of conduit like a very large fault zone.
Your other slide, #14 of the AMC PowerPoint deck, is also very important but I consider it an ultra-conservative “placeholder” slide pending the receipt of fresh data. I think the vein strike of the Fortuna Centro and the Merlin 1 Vein is going to end up being much longer than that estimated. For now, those 2 veins are considered “open in all directions” which includes the north-south lineal extent as well as to depth. I think the 200 meter approximate depth could go up substantially after they complete that intra-adit drilling downwards from adit #3 starting at the 150 meter depth level. The IP/CSAMT survey results suggest that the veins go a lot deeper than 200 meters but I do appreciate AMC’s conservatism for now. CSAMT surveys have a very good track record for deep analyses. Soon we’ll be able to fill in the blank for “average gold grade” for at least the Merlin 1 Vein/Caren Mine at about the 150 meter depth level below the plateau. The projected 19.5 gpt gold for the Fortuna Mine is a lot more conservative than the past production results which averaged 64 gpt gold from 1940 to 1970 and 90 gpt from 1952 to 1955.
In essence, Bocanegra’s projected 660,000 ounces “in situ” figure on slide #14 could change enormously with time. Recall too that you need to factor in the other Fortuna and Merlin Veins that made it to surface as well as those “bosses” and “plugs” that didn’t. This slide only factored in the currently 2,900 meter combined length of the Fortuna Centro and M-1 Veins (2 of about 6) down to the 200 meter depth level. The average width of the “boiling zones” in epithermal veins like these which host the bonanza grades is 450 meters. My advice would be to keep that table handy but keep some “white out” on hand until we can acquire the accurate data. That 660,000 ounce figure could morph into many times that figure if the actual length, depth, average grade and contribution from other veins are updated and factored in. The ongoing exploration and mining processes will no doubt reveal other ore shoots present as well as other artisanal adits similar to the recently discovered “adit 2A”. The drifting of the LDMC adit revealed a vast network of preexisting “Spanish tunnels”.
Recall that AMC’s exhaustive trenching and sampling program identified over 5,000 meters of Merlin and Fortuna Veins having made it to surface. The IP/CSAMT surveys clearly reveal many subparallel veins that didn’t make it to surface. You might mentally add 3 rows to that slide #14 table and label them “Other Merlin Veins that may or may not have made it to surface”, “Other Fortuna Veins that may or may not have made it to surface” and “Other subparallel veins and adits revealed during drilling and/or the mining process”. At the Andacollo Gold property to the north over 100 veins oriented in a NNW to SSE direction were discovered.
SOME CONTEXT
Depending on whom you read the term “world class deposit” refers to a deposit with a minimum of in between 3.2 million ounces of gold equivalent (Singer) and 5 million ounces (many other authors). Of the 10,500 ha property complex, the Merlin and Fortuna Veins cover about 400 ha or about 1/25th (4%) of the property.
ACA Howe and Gordon house have already informed us that the Gordon bx by itself contains about 1.5 million ounces of gold equivalent. These are not PROVEN OR PROBABLE RESERVES due to the lack of a Pre-feasibility Study having been completed at the time. The breakdown was 180 million pounds of Cu, 722,000 ounces of gold and 6.5 million ounces of silver. AMC later expanded the Gordon and associated breccias extensively to the west and south. They now conservatively say that the “brecciated” region (perhaps another 400 ha or so) has at least 1 million ounces of gold equivalent. At the LDM, the stratabound deposit/skarn probably has not undergone enough development to make any preliminary projections as to contained ounces. The deposit type (not necessarily size) is being modeled after the Lo Aguirre deposit just south of the ADL and/or the El Soldado Mine to its north.
I believe that most geoscientists familiar with the ADL mining district would consider that the amount of ounces of gold equivalent contained within the Pegaso Nero Cu/Mo porphyry area will PROBABLY dwarf the rest of the property complex. The average Cu/Mo porphyry weighs in at about 500 million metric tonnes. The terms of any upcoming JV there might help us rough out a valuation for Medinah’s stake in the action there and then by extrapolation the value of all of their assets. The PN represents about 1,000 ha of the 10,500 ha mining district. The contract between AMC and Medinah stipulates that Medinah is entitled to 25% of any new discoveries made by AMC within 5 Km of the perimeter of the current property complex. AMC has clearly shown the ability and the desire to expand its property holdings in the area.
A CLOSER LOOK AT SLIDE #19
This table basically projects the volume of the M 1 and Fortuna Centro veins by giving us an estimated length (strike distance), width and depth. This volume would be measured in cubic meters. Since the grades are measured in grams per tonne of ore and we desire to estimate the number of ounces of gold held “in situ” (in the ground) then we need a “fudge factor” to be able to relate the volume of ore calculated in terms of cubic meters to grams or ounces of gold held in the vein system. This “fudge factor” is the density of the ore in terms of tonnes per cubic meter. In the case of granodiorite the density is about 2.5 tonnes per cubic meter. This is the only “constant” in this formula.
This is a fairly standard equation used in the mining industry. It’s important to recognize that if any or all of the 4 main “variables” i.e. length, width, depth and grade were under-estimated then that 660,000 ounce figure could be grossly low. For instance, if the depth of the veins ends up averaging 400 meters instead of 200 meters then that 660,000 figure becomes 1.32 Million ounces. If the estimated grades came in at twice the projected averages then that 1.32 Million ounce figure becomes 2.64 Million ounces.
Right off the bat we might be able to recognize the conservative nature of these projections for the “length” variable. This table only accounts for the 2,900 meters of vein length associated with the M 1 and Fortuna Centro Veins yet AMC already identified over 5,000 meters of Merlin and Fortuna Veins making it to surface plus who knows how many lineal meters of veins that didn’t make it to surface. Keep in mind also that the M 1 and Fortuna Centro Veins are “open” in all directions meaning they go further but we just don’t know yet how much further. The length is fairly easy to measure across the plateau via trenching. Is it possible that this projected “length” variable might be off a factor of 3 or so all by itself.
The math gets kind of interesting when you have 4 variables like these. If the length variable is off by a factor of 3 and the depth variable by a factor of 2 and the grade factor by a factor 2 (all hypotheticals) then that 660,000 estimate is off by a factor of 12 (3 times 2 times 2) i.e. there is approximately 8 million ounces present! The message here is to wait for these variables to be further defined just in case this estimate is ultra-conservative.
Those 4 variables are all important when calculating in situ ounces but in situ ounces don’t address the economics of a project. Since it costs pretty much the same to process one tonne of ore whether its “average grade” is 20 gpt gold or 60 gpt gold, it’s the “average grade” variable that you need to keep a close eye on. The extra income derived from higher grades has a tendency to trickle down to the bottom line in this industry.
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Doc, that’s quite impressive, I have to say.
I am 55 and I know you have 5 or 6 more years than I do. Due to the sordid company past and present challenges we are facing, do you think we’ll be able to laugh all the way to the bank this life time or the next?
If it’s the next, maybe you might also rejoice 'cuz your Beavers finally might compete for something higher than 235th in the NCAA Football Rankings… 
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Auryn has been in production for a month.
What have you been producing???
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It’s amazing waking up every morning and seeing these big blocks on the ASK.
As was reported here before, the intent was to mine 3 truckloads, perform metallurgical / processing testing on those, and then decide on the best way forward. Such decisions take some time to make. So although it was called “production” it is at the same time “early ramp up in production”.
5000 Oz by Dec 31 is the measuring stick given to us at this point. I would expect to hear something on these early efforts pretty soon.
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Hi Albireo,
I’ve missed seeing you at the OSU Beaver pep rallies. Due to our new ranking at #235 we’re now holding them at a phone booth off campus. There’s plenty of extra room if you’re in the neighborhood!
For me, Medinah continues to be an enigma. What are the odds of discovering a mining district with these assets and at the same time having the corporate governance issues that are on the table? Usually the corporate hanky panky occurs with meritless assets not assets like these. C’est la vie!
What’s going to be interesting is if the corporate governance issues will provide a thick enough of a black cloud to keep investors from appreciating the merits of the assets. The silver lining here is that there are plenty of mining groups that would love to obtain Medinah’s piece of the action INDEPENDENT OF the corporate governance issues. The question remains as to how many ways this “pie” will be divided but the “pie” is going to be a very large “pie” no matter what. I was very relieved when Maurizio mentioned the 3 groups at the table concerning the Pegaso Nero and the fact that it was way too big for Masglas/AMC to tackle.
I don’t think there were any people that came out of the recent informational meeting with any doubts about the capabilities and character of those now steering the ship. Go Beavs; where I have no idea!
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“…Maurizio mentioned the 3 groups at the table concerning the Pegaso Nero
and the fact that it was way too big for Masglas/AMC to tackle.”
Sounds like a job for JJ and Les! Get the backhoe out Juan!
Like I said a few years ago on one of the MDMN boards There are always law suits involved when an exploration company turns into a production company. So I am again right.
At these prices if you are selling either you are losing money or trading freebie shares. There are not to many left that have bought 12 years ago at these prices so you have to ask yourself who is selling at a loss?
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L2 looks very ugly
Do yourself a favor and don’t watch it. You’ll just stress yourself out. Nothings going to fixed it for awhile till we get news that will make people take notice. Stress kills or shortens life span, you get to my age, it’s all about reducing stress 
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