Sure, it wasn’t economic, it was sub-ore grade. And we had drilled a lot of barren holes that didn’t find anything. But here was the most astonishingly fractured rock, a place where perhaps a great orebody might have formed
How can you say that drilling one hole and finding sub economic copper rules out an Olympic Dam type deposit? When infact is the most core memory form the Man in Charge of finding the Olymipic Dam Deposit in the first place...? http://www.science.org.au/scientists/interviews/w/notes_woodall.html
Over a long career, Woodall has made extraordinary contributions to the science of mineral exploration and mine development. He and his teams have been instrumental in the discovery and development of many of Australia’s commercially important mineral deposits including Kambalda, Western Australia (nickel, 1960s), Yeelirrie, Western Australia (uranium, 1971), Olympic Dam, South Australia (copper, uranium, gold, 1975), and Ernest Henry, Queensland (gold and copper, 1991). Three of these deposits – Kambalda, Yeelirrie and Olympic Dam are ore deposits the like of which had never previously been found anywhere in the world.The discovery at Olympic Dam, beneath 300 metres of barren rock, was among the most spectacular of his scientific achievements. The discovery revealed the fourth largest copper deposit in the world, the largest uranium deposit in the world and the largest gold deposit found in Australia. Woodall also participated in petroleum exploration with successes in South Australia and Western Australia, and by applying the latest science and engineering knowledge, helped to revitalise production from oilfields in the United States of America
Your first drilling target seems to have presented you with something of a conundrum.
It did. Well, what to do next? We drilled some more holes. We’re now out in the desert [laugh], over a hundred kilometres from any known copper mineralisation, drilling expensive holes which cost at least $100,000 each, following up copper mineralisation of a type that neither we nor anyone else in the world had ever seen before, in a strange hematite-rich rock which we subsequently recognised as brecciated granite.Tim and Hugh had agreed on a second target some distance away, so we drilled that. We found nothing. We came back to the location where we did get that ‘sniff’ of copper in the first hole, RD1; we drilled a second hole, and we found nothing. We drilled a third hole and found nothing. Now, I tell you: in many companies, at this stage the managing director would have phoned up and said, ‘You guys, stop wasting my money drilling holes out in the desert and finding nothing, thank you very much. It may be scientifically interesting, but I’ve got shareholders to satisfy.’ But we persisted! We drilled a fourth hole and found nothing. We drilled the fifth hole and we got a similar intersection to the first hole, a ‘sniff’. Well!
What was the length of the intersection?
Initially, 30 metres. That may have seemed a big intersection, but now you’re down 300 metres, it’s only 1% copper, and with copper only 50 cents a pound such an intersection is uneconomic. This is where the confidence of the management – the WMC Board and the Managing Director and, especially, the Chairman – became so important. They never once questioned our desire to keep drilling. Why did we keep drilling? Well, we’d found an unusual copper mineralisation. , so we kept going. Hole No. 6 found nothing. No. 7 found nothing.
This is, by ordinary standards, almost perverse persistence, isn’t it?
Yes. We now know that some of those drill holes went quite close to very high-grade ore and we were just unlucky. But I am sure that many, many people and many, many companies have been in this situation looking for an orebody, having spent a lot of money, and have then walked away after drill hole No. 9! When do you stop? We kept going because of these exciting-looking rocks. Then we drilled RD10 and we intersected over 200 metres of 2% copper. And – what a bonus! – it also had a significant gold content and a significant uranium content.
Rusty Ridge has the same exciting rocks......in a strange hematite-rich rock which we subsequently recognised as brecciated granite sandwich inbetween the basalt......
Haynes says other geologists had previously noted an association between altered basalts and copper occurrences, but there was no proof that altered basalts produced copper. The PhD study sought to prove the connection. If Haynes succeeded, he would establish for Western Mining a radically different model for finding copper deposits. It was exactly the kind of new science on which the company had built its reputation and its rising wealth.
Haynes says that by early 1972 — almost three years into the PhD study — the research showed convincingly that common types of continental basalts became “potent sources of copper” when altered by heated water in the Earth’s crust. Furthermore, certain chemical markers (such as the ratio of reduced and oxidised iron in the rock and the rock sodium content) clearly identified some basalts as better sources of copper than others
Haynes’ PhD received a commendation from the ANU review committee, falling short of the top level of merit. Perhaps the ANU did not appreciate the full significance of the research, although it would rectify this in 1985 by awarding Haynes the David Brown Medal for the best application of a PhD to industry.
Western Mining certainly had no doubts about the value of Haynes’ findings. Haynes says everything possible was done to keep his research from the prying eyes of competitors. While there were limits to the restrictions that could be placed on access to a taxpayer-funded PhD, Western Mining was able to keep Haynes’ research findings under wraps until 1974. It effectively managed a two-year head-start on any competitors that might want to throw their own exploration funds behind the breakthrough science that Haynes had developed at ANU.
HOLDING BACK ALSO MAKED SENSE Then as it does now....Some Enities (any entity that is looking to add claims buy claims, accumulate stock, individual that have seen this pattern before, all know)
