hi hydro,

without getting into this too far, because i don,t have much time right now, i will just give my opinion;

you said;

"Sculpin, one thing I would like clarification on however is your comment:
"drill core intercepts will usually be lower than actual mining grade of the vein that was intercepted."

Could you elaborate on this? Statistically speaking, shouldn't there be an equal chance of the mining grade being lower than that of the core samples? I suppose it depends on the geometry of the veins and distribution of gold within them. I would just appreciate some insight to your reasoning."

I said usually because there are always exceptions. You have to think of the chances of success of hitting a small target and a large target. You have approx a 2-3 inch drill core poking around, while if you take the size a ton of dirt,roughly .6 m cube. Your chances of finding higher grade gold in the bigger target, the ton, are better than finding them in a smaller target, the drill core. Thats why you need so many drill holes when trying to follow and get a representable grade of a structure. And yes,there are other determining factors that would be considered differently for each type of structure,ie; nugget effect.