Are copper oxide showings at the surface common?
Yes. Anywhere in or close to an established mining district, showings of copper oxides in surface rocks are pretty common.
I think JB's point is that prospect pits are nowhere to be found on LBSR's claims. Prospect pits (or trenches, tunnels, shafts, etc.) were the old time prospector's equivalent of what we do today - drill. They did not have the technology to drill, therefore, they had to expose enough rock to see what was going on. Most old diggings (and there are tens of thousands of old diggings in Arizona) were abandoned because what they exposed was not worth developing, at least at the time.
I guarantee that the old-time prospectors walked across the LBSR claims - they looked at everything. The fact that they did not feel it was worth digging despite some dime-sized CuOx blobs says a lot. They had far more interesting things to look at than a couple of spots of green.
As for hyping the "lack of" aboriginal or Spanish explorer diggings....that's where it gets pretty ridiculous. Yes, there are aboriginal diggings on turquoise showings at some locations in the Southwest (Gleeson, AZ for instance), but it is relatively rare cases where that can be proven. Spanish explorers - well maybe, but how would you tell the difference between a pit dug by an Spaniard, and a pit dug by an early prospector?
Anyway, it is all just a bunch of hype. The real issue is the data. What does it really say, and is it really compelling?
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