I am not a geo but I do have a background in project evaluation so I will just throw in a few comments regarding the economics. Grade is only one factor, but its often the only one that people really look at. I do not think average grade is very important. Lets just consider that mother nature puts the gold in the ground under variable conditions, and therefore there are going to be some parts of a deposit that are higher grade, and some parts that are lower grade. Within the entire deposit envelope all of those zones will count toward the total resource number, and therefore the sum of all zones can also be used to calculate and average for the deposit. However, when putting together a mining plan, for any deposit of any grade, some of the resource zones will never be part of the mine. There is no law that states a company must mine the lower grade sections. Even in a shallow open pit, an operator can strip lower grade rock out as waste, and just process that rich stuff. All of that must be accounted for in the costs to move the rock, but the higher grade zones are what makes a mine.

As for the discussion regarding other juniors with similar grade deposits, keep in mind that a development decision will come down to the return on capital. If it costs you $100 million to build a mine, but over the life of the mine one may only expect to earn $110 million in operating profits during a 10-year mine program, then its unlikely a project will get the green light. One could just put the money in a bond and get a higher return with less risk. So keep in mind that some projects make sense because they are in areas that cost less to develop, even if the grade is the same. One project will go ahead and one will not, just on the basis of expected return on capital.

Finally, keep in mind that metallurgy is going to make the biggest difference in the economics of a low grade story. If the gold is difficult to recover and it becomes necessary to run the rock through a multi-stage recovery circuit with intense crushing to reduce the particle size, and the net gold recovery is in the lower end of the scale, then its not going to work at this gold price. Period. Even the lowest cost operation still needs to have a good chunk of gold produced at the end of the day just to pay for the cost to extract and process it. Never mind the cost to build the mine, or all other expenses that add up. Low grade and low recoery = no mine.

As we get more info on the deposit we can start to plug in some of the questions above and then have a better idea how much of this story is potentially economic.

cheers!

mike