Dear Twilight- Most of us appreciate that the ideal scenerio is a gold deposit where the gold particles are fine and uniformly distributed throughout the host rock, thus giving you the intercepts and homogenous grades such as the ones you posted (ie 100 m intercept at > 1 g/t). The pertinent issue (and I think you know this) is the gold particle size distribution (or the median size of the particles that contribute to the majority of gold in the deposit) and the nature of the particle distribution in the host rock.
Let’s use a placer type deposit as an example of a deposit with a similar nuggety type distribution. Can placer deposits be economical despite drill grades repeatedly underestimating the true grade? … of course they can! If we are to believe your posts regarding drill cores as the only reliable means of producing tonnage numbers, then it should not be possible to generate a NI43-101 compliant resource estimate for a placer type deposit. But wait- Jim Tilsley has already done this and, in fact, he likens defining the grades and tonnage for the Bellechasse property to his previous experience with the placer model .The trick is finding the right grade estimator to apply to your drill core date and that estimator is based on, among other things, the gold particle size distribution, knowledge of low probability event statistics, which when combined with a detailed geologic map of the deposit, gives you tonnage estimates.
Now I respect the fact that you may not buy into the hydraulic fracturing model, the extrapolation of deposit depth to 1000m, and the fact that bulk sampling at surface may not reflect the nature of the deposit at depth but I feel you are misleading readers when you say that we will not be able to produce volume (tonnage) with the drill data we are collecting and an appropriate estimator of grade as outlined above.
Respectfully,
Scott
