Dear M.

I am not a mining expert, I am cardiovascular physiologist who works on the heart and blood vessels so most of my time is spent dealing with varicose veins rather than quartz veins in diorite.

Nonetheless I will try to oblige you with an answer to the best of my knowledge. The ore that you speak/shout of is primarily associated with diorite intrusions that themselves are believed to plunge deep into the earth but have very sporadic surface expression in the Bellechasse properties (apparently the diorite dips and dives like a serpent). The fracturing event has created a number of "cracks" in the diorite that creates quartz veins that range in widths from 1-2 metres to 10s of metres with a good portion of the vein looking somewhat hairy as though there are micro-pressure cracks emanating in 3D around the vein. Given the predicted range of gold grades in each vein and the spacing between the veins, the open pit strategy would make it very difficult to extract the quartz-diorite veins without taking a lot of waste rock. James Tilsley has crunched the numbers and determined that underground mining is the best and most econmical strategy at current gold prices. I have yet to find a reason to question his geologic or mining/exploration expertise so at this point I am inclined to believe him. Essentially we have a low grade vein system that has every likelihood of continuing to depth along with the diorite intrusions that host them. Now if the quartz-diorite zones happen to converge at depth as is predicted to happen, there may also be a chance of increasing the efficiency of mining this thing as we go deeper (please refer back to my varicose veins comment before reading anything further into that statement).

Best,

Scott