AXG - Antipodes Gold [formerly GEL - Glass Earth]

[delboy]

Am I right in that these are only for the Canadian shares? Why not both the NZ and Canadian shares? I thought its time I started asking more questions as I really am just learning, so apologies if they seem a bit obvious to others

[elZorro]

Am I right in that these are only for the Canadian shares? Why not both the NZ and Canadian shares? I thought its time I started asking more questions as I really am just learning, so apologies if they seem a bit obvious to others

Hi Delboy, no, the shares are identical, just the exchange rate changes the price in theory. You can buy shares on the TSX and bring them back to NZ with some paperwork. I'm not sure how the PP would go, most likely you could buy NZ shares if dealing with a NZ broker. The PP work is generally done overseas as the bigger exploration investors are over there.

[elZorro]

I had a look at Wikipedia, the incidence of gold on average in the Earth's crust is around 0.0031 to 0.004 ppm. 1 ppm is one gram per tonne of crust.

This means that payable placer grades (0.2g/m3) are already 25x more concentrated than the average crust (and it's free gold), and mining grades at say 0.6g/tonne are 150x more concentrated than average. Bonanza grades are of course rare, being above 30 g/tonne, and are 10,000 times more concentrated than normal.

Looking at the WKP drills again, this is promising. NZResources wrote an article.

Fresh drill results enhances WKP discovery

Ross Louthean — 26 September 2012
The latest round of drilling results from an epithermal gold-silver deposit near Waihi in the Hauraki goldfield has re-sharpened interest in the project.
Junior partner Glass Earth Gold Ltd (TSX-V and NZAX: GEL) detailed the progress assays received from a new 5,500 metres diamond drilling programme on the WKP project in which managing partner Newmont Mining Corporation is operator and holds a 65% stake.
Newmont subsidiary Newmont Waihi Gold operates the open cut and underground mining operations at Waihi – New Zealand’s only large hard-rock gold operation on the North Island.
Glass Earth said hole WKP32A had an intersection of 0.5 metres grading 61.3 grams/tonne gold and 19.4 g/t silver within a halo of 111m @ 0.6 g/t Au and 1.8 g/t Ag.
Hole WKP33 produced 8.2m @ 6.6 g/t Au and 2.7 g/t Ag.
Glass Earth Gold’s managing director Simon Henderson said the current drill programme, which began in April, has delivered encouraging results from drill holes WKP31, 32A and 33, and confirmed the tenor of high grade veins within a broad lower grade central mineralised central zone.
This drilling phase aims to confirm the major structural controls on mineralisation, with WKP35 “already providing further new and encouraging visual evidence of a major mineralised structure on the EG (Eastern Graben) zone, allowing a focus on resource definition in follow-up drilling campaigns.
Glass Earth said that back in February drilling on the WKP T-Stream high grade vein WKP 31 defined an interval that has been followed northwards in drill holes 33 and 34.
Significant results not previously reported from 31 include 6m @ 1.5g/t Au and 1.5 g/t Ag from 232m down hole. A previously announced result from WKP31 was 9.7m @ 17.2 g/t Au and 22 2 g/t Ag.
On the project’s Central Zone, drill hole WKP 32A tested the southern extensions and into the Western Zone anomaly at depth, demonstrating that this broad zone of mineralisation is persistent to the south, with narrow high grade veins (0.5m @ 61.3 gm/t Au, 19 g/t Ag; 1.2m @ 20.3g/t Au and 12.4g/t Ag), residing within a broader.
This broad zone of +0.5 g/t Au mineralisation is persistent over 750m.
“Exploration within the WKP area continues to demonstrate that it is a large permissive gold system with potential to host significant epithermal gold deposits,” Henderson said.
The WKP prospect covers a 3 kilometre by 5 km mineralised alteration zone, 10 km from Newmont's producing Waihi mining operations where 10 million ounces of gold equivalent has been produced. It is also 5 km north east of the Golden Cross mine that produced 634,000 oz of gold.
The budgeted cost of the current drilling for the joint venture is about $C3.3 M ($NZ4.1 M).
The WKP epithermal system has magnetic/alteration characteristics similar to the Martha epithermal system and has open-along-strike potential of at least 1-2km.

The highlighted bits are comments not reported in the press release. WKP has hotspots of high grade in a lower grade orebody. So does Martha Mine, and no-one forgets how many Moz came out of there. Special mention of WKP35, it must have been a great-looking drill core. They'll be following that up, for sure.

Mind you, there are talks of 20 job losses at Newmont's Waihi Gold. And they're talking about scaling back on exploration. Just as well WKP doesn't cost much at the moment, and has a huge potential.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=10836378

[elZorro]

I think it's possible there are two drill rigs running up at WKP. WKP32A and WKP35 are collared at the same spot, which is 600-700 metres south of WKP33 and WKP34, collared together. Only half of the drills from each spot have been reported on. The southern extension drills also appear to be a lot longer.

In April Simon reported that one of the jobs of this programme is to test the southern extensions.

http://www.highgrade.net/article/201..._beyond_Martha

We've been told that WKP36 is being drilled. The rig had to be uplifted from the WKP35 collar and resited no doubt. This makes it possible that WKP35 was drilled by early August, at which time Jeff Huspeni had the announcement at Diggers and Dealers:

Higher grade targets identified at WKP

Ross Louthean — 8 August 2012
Operator for the exciting WKP gold discovery near Waihi, Newmont Waihi Gold, has been able to identify potential high grade zones at the prospect which may accelerate exploration.

At the Diggers & Dealers Forum in Australia’s gold capital of Kalgoorlie, Newmont Asia Pacific’s senior vice president Jeff Huspeni told NZResources.com that recent diamond holes into the prospect had identified what could be a feeder zone.

There would now, he said, be a focus on adding grade to what appears to be a large system.
Newmont owns 65% of WKP with the balance held by active New Zealand gold explorer Glass Earth Gold Ltd (NZAX & TSX-V: GEL).

NZResources.com suggested to Huspeni that WKP was perhaps the most exciting emerging gold discovery in New Zealand. He did not disagree.

The WKP 'EG' zone is a completely new one, there are no legacy drilling locations on the lower parts of it. The other zones have been relabelled and the latest map put up on the GEL website. This zone lies beside a fault, on the other side of which is Andesite, and the zone is over a Rhyolite Flow. If the EG zone is what's termed a feeder zone, the next drill about 200mtr south would confirm it (WKP37?), and the grades could be impressive. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

More detail in the paper from Christie et al: http://glassearthgold.com/i/pdf/Christie_p137.pdf

Very clear indications that the best drill results obtained in 20 years of legacy work on WKP were DDH20 and DDH23. These were both about 100mtrs above WKP35, heading in the same direction. The gold is normally hosted here in a NNE trending rhyolite flow (snap) with intrusive andesite nearby (snap). Dr Christie clearly suggested "drill to the south of here" in his paper. He almost put an X on the map perhaps.

[elZorro]

Attention at Waihi is firmly on the Golden Link project, which includes Correnso. There's a lot at stake, although Newmont appear to have a bob each way by continuing on with WKP exploration in the meantime.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Waihi-gold-mi...2/Default.aspx

I've had a look at a TOPO map of the WKP area. Looking at the area just below the circular track that skirts the older mining region, the purple dots are old drills mentioned in Christie et al, and the rough location of the latest WKP drills are shown. Old drills 20 and 23 were the best of the original set, with a grade of 3oz/tonne over a short interval being included. Drill 21, 400mtrs south of WKP35, was not without a strike, with 0.12g/tonne over 65 mtrs. Drill 22 pointed in the other direction, only found a little. The Martha Hill main prospect yielded over 10Moz, and is no wider than about 800 metres.

Older drill 20 (DDH20) intersected a broad zone of consistent mineralised sheeted quartz veins, averaging 1.4g/t Au over 83 metres from 159m downhole (Rabone, 1991a).

[elZorro]

Guided by a post on Stockhouse, I've found the BNN clip from the evening of 27th September, yesterday, where in part 7 of his normal spot, Brent Cook was asked about Glass Earth Gold.

Glass Earth is one of 20 junior explorers in his portfolio, and each one of these has been chosen for its outstanding prospects, from a pool of 1500 similar companies worldwide he's researched with his team. He's decided to keep GEL in his portfolio, based on the latest news release.

http://watch.bnn.ca/#clip771133

Have a look from the middle of this clip. Brent is going to write up GEL's prospects and his current opinion in his subscription broadsheet, this weekend.

He seems to think that if Newmont find continuous high-grade veins at WKP, either the project or GEL itself will be bought out. (Newmont have been keen to suggest that any future mines on the Coromandel would be underground). Brent also said that Newmont needs more good ore for its mill in Waihi, and that WKP is just over the hill, it would be feasible given good grades.

[elZorro]

Strong buying pressure for GEL on the TSX overnight as I'd expected. A lot of investors listen to Brent Cook.

Since 2007, the gold price has just kept going up, and naturally Newmont's plans have changed too.

This from Contrafed.
http://www.contrafedpublishing.co.nz...relations.html

The Vision Waihi Trust (VWT) helped organise the moving of the Cornish Pumphouse, and are involved in running tours of the Martha Hill minesite and environs. John Dow, Chairman of Glass Earth, was chaiman of VWT in 2006 and is still one of three trustees. He retired from his position as Chairman and MD of Newmont Australia in 2005.

All of this goes to my point that GEL is not a fly-by-night operation, there has been a lot of long-term planning in setting it up for what could be a very exciting time ahead for shareholders.

[elZorro]

This document describes WKP prospect historically as a bit of a failure, written by David Wilton in 2007.

The Treasury is a historical society based in Thames. Mr Wilton is qualified in the IT field, not geology, and has an interest in history and in helping the kiwi recovery program, according to the web.

However, the background of WKP is fascinating. A lot of effort went in over a century ago, when everything was stacked against them. Motor vehicles had barely been invented, steam or fast flowing water was the main driving power, and there was very poor access into the Coromandel bush. At the time the Hauraki mines were stamping ore with an average grade of 3oz/ton. The cutoff was 1oz/ton, and while that cutoff is now called a bonanza grade, I think the mines must all have been underground, and religiously following only the rich veins. They had no automatic underground miners, dump trucks, no ball mills or automation to speak of. In real terms, gold is now worth at least three times as much, and it's easier to extract large ore volumes from underground.

This writeup does explain very clearly that the walk into the WKP prospect area is about 1 hour each way, it's relatively easy going and well signposted, at least if you stay on the track. It's a public DOC walking track, anyone can go in.

Newmont Waihi, 2010:

The Future – Exploration
Visit Waihi’s Gold Story in the Waihi Visitor Centre, upper Seddon St, opposite the Cornish Pumphouse for
further information about exploration.
Favona decline (gradient 1:7) is currently 4,690 metres long and 332 metres below the surface. More than
16,800 metres of drives have been completed. The portal (underground entrance) was officially opened in
November 2004. Has been producing ore from stopes since September 2006.
Exploration drilling is taking place in and around Waihi and at Onemana. Diamond drills extract core samples
for analysis. Drill core is 5 – 9 cm diameter. A drill site uses approximately 10m x 10m area. All drill sites are
rehabilitated.

Newmont's interest is in high grade deposits in low-value conservation localities that can be mined by small
footprint underground methods. Ore would be transported to Waihi for processing at existing facility.

The RMA consultation process is rigorous and transparent and will be in place for any consent applications.

Here is part of the detailed consent process under way for the Correnso Mine.

Correnso is designed to use infrastructure from nearby mines Favona, Trio and Martha Hill. If they are given consent, Newmont will start developing the mine access in mid 2013, start mining in 2015, and have it completed by 2020, backfilling with crushed ore and concrete mix as they go. Trio and Favona mines would overlap production with Correnso for one year, and then 330-400 workers would be required on Correnso, with Trio and Favona being closed. A lot of the activity on Martha Hill (the pit) is stope stabilisation by decreasing the slope angle, to meet permit requirements. They are retrieving a limited amount of gold at the same time. This must be a loss-making exercise.

The mining technique proposed for Correnso appears to be by blasting, with smaller charges nearer the surface to meet consents (at least 150m underground). The longest blasting time is 18 seconds duration, with mining blasts being shorter, 8 seconds. The grade of gold at Correnso is less than 1oz/tonne, but in many places, not by much. Good solid seams too.

By August 2011, a newsletter included:

If approved, construction of the Correnso Mine would start in mid 2013.This would see a continuation of underground mining after the Trio Mine project’s anticipated finish in 2014. We expect
the Correnso Mine could operate to the end of 2020, but
potentially longer if additional resources are discovered.

If Newmont are loaded with cash and bullish in future, that should be a good thing for GEL shareholders. HSBC seem to think Newmont are well undervalued anyway.

https://www.research.hsbc.com/midas/...5&n=331666.PDF

The very detailed report includes mention of Correnso, but not WKP. Newmont only started drilling WKP in 2010 I think, a year after the discovery of Correnso. Three years later, the mining consent process for Correnso has started. Good grades demand action.

Why opencast is not usually a topic for conversation near Coromandel.

[elZorro]

Brent Cook has a subscription newsletter called Exploration Insights. Very recently, he has clipped out some sections of those weekly newsletters and put them into one big document for general background information. It does indicate that there is a lot to know about gold exploration, and WKP gets at least one mention.

https://www.explorationinsights.com/...ts_Aug2012.pdf

WKP mention I spotted:

CSAMT
From Exploration Insights:7/10/11

A CSAMT (Controlled SourceAudio frequency MagnetoTellurics) survey involves transmitting a controlled set of electric signals into the ground at one site and measuring the returned and natural signal, plus the magnetic field at other sites. The recorded orthogonal,horizontal electric and magnetic data is then filtered and processed through a complicated mathematical process to determine the relative resistivity of the area being investigated. The survey is a fairly easy and inexpensive geophysical tool that can be used to cover large areas and “see” up to hundreds of meters into the earth.

In the case of WKP, the resistivity anomaly relates to nearly massive silica associated with the hydrothermal system that replaced the host rock with quartz (and a bit of gold). Hence the resistivity anomaly is showing us where the center of the mineral system is.

One resistivity cross-section is helpfully provided on the WKP page on GEL's website. It lined up with the longest higher-grade intercept found by WKP24, over 150 metres at 1.6 g/tonne.

http://www.glassearthgold.com/s/Proj...eportID=450302

[ynot]

Thanks for the link EZ. This guy is good reading.