In talking with several of the Wildcat people on Saturday at the Mining Convention, I got a bit of better sense of the picture at Jeep. This property has been a real puzzle. Having at one time had a producing mine with the highest grades of gold in the area, why have there been such poor drilling results from more recent attempts? A couple of possible answers came out of the discussions I had:
1. When a gold deposit is formed, there is a tendency for the gold-bearing liquid rock to settle in the cracks and pockets of the host rocks, and for it to harden quite evenly so that the drill results across a given area would be fairly consistent in the same formation when drilling in the same area. However, there are some circumstances where another element or compound is present (I forget what name was used for it) where the effect on the hardening liquid is to create a "nuggeting" effect - so that the gold forms in clumps or in uneven concentrations. When that happens, you will have very inconsistent results and possible very high grade pockets. That is one possible explanation for the Jeep. In a situation like that, you can drill multiple holes at staggered distances and miss the spots where the better grades of gold are.
2. In the host rocks around the Bissett area, there are multiple fracture lines, sometimes with fractures running in differing directions within the same host rock formations. Depending on the way the liquid rock is routed when it passes into the fractures in the host rock, it may end up with higher concentrations in fractures running one way versus another way. Recent drilling at Jeep has been focused on the faults running in a WNW to ESE direction, with drill holes crossing this line perpendicularly and at an angle from surface. Now the thought is to explore fractures running the other direction - more in a NNE - SSW direction, so the holes being drilled this winter will be going in a different direction to see whether better results may be had.
So, there will be another try at Jeep with a few holes, but considering the lack of good results from recent attempts, the tendency now is to start puting more emphasis on other properties rather than getting stuck on one location with disappointing results.
NL
