For the nervous nellies...
Briscoe has done this before, successfully. He has painstakingly line-surveyed hundreds of square miles for over five years. He quietly did high-tech analysis of plant tissue samples from the sites and winnowed down the data to target the right claims. I assume they use gas chromatography for this, but I don't know for certain. What I do know is that there aren't many capricious ways to make certain plants show anomalously high mineral readings without feeding the plants with precious minerals by hand over time and hundreds of sq. miles. Costly and not likely...
Next they did a ZTEM study of the claims. This magnetic-imaging technology is similar to a large scale MRI, technology which has been understood and successfully employed for decades. Because of known constants like conductivity and capacitance, elements and compounds can be detected and mapped in 3D to a high degree of accuracy by noting their displacement in a magnetic field. This is your Grandfather's metal detector on steroids and to be thorough, they offered to also survey the adjacent Northern Dynasty Minerals property. The combined results showed conclusively that the deposits on the LBSR claims are of a consistent size and grade with NAK/Pebble, the largest deposit in North America, but the LBSR deposits are more numerous and appear to have 6-7 times as many deposits. This technology is not easily fooled by common elements like iron or aluminum. Also consider that this type of geological formation is a great place to start looking for gold anyway, since vulcanism is known to bring metallic elements through the crust and Alaska has a long and rich history of gold production. Science, folks, and not terribly theoretical by today's standards.
Add the following factors to streamline the process:
A) It's in Alaska, on land set aside for mineral development 10 years ago, at a time when pro-business Alaska has record unemployment. This is not a slave-trade mine trading in the currency-of-the-week in the Peoples Republic of Terroristan.
B) It's a field that is already pulverized by glaciers. We're ramping roads and driving out with millions of tons of ore, no shafts, just box-cut and bulldoze. Safer, faster, cheaper. We're also strategically close to seaways, important for the Chinese companies that are already watching closely.
C) We are on the sweet spot in the recovery cycle, when raw commodities are locked in via acquisition to avoid revenue fluctuations caused by supply spikes. The writing is on the wall. Look back and you'll see a litany of stories showing companies less desirable than this one getting gobbled up by multinationals. We already have two of the planet's most successful mining incubators right next door, funding our drilling so the shareholders can rest easy about expenses.
Briscoe has never sold a single share, and he knows everything I just posted plus the rest of the story. Think about that. This is not a stupid guy, and this is not his first rodeo. Unless you're hoping for the daily double, this is a set & forget.
(Unless, like me, you buy more!)
AI
