One of the things that makes the Golden Wonder mine an exciting exploration target is the nature of the gold deposit and how little of it has been explored. Right now, our crews are literally chewing their way through the fractured vent system of a collapsed volcano…a caldera. Hot water, under pressure, carrying gold solutions was forced up from the magma chamber into the fractures of the volcanic vent system…an area known as the “boiling zone.” Wherever these solution were trapped or slowed long enough to cool, the gold would precipitate out of solution and be deposited within the fractures “veins” and vents “ore chutes.” Typically, when we encountered wider areas where veins converge, gold values rise dramatically….often into double digits. So far, we’ve looked at less than ten percent of the caldera.
The last sizable ore chute, discovered by LKA crews in the mid-1980s but not developed and mined until 2002, yielded over 133,000 ounces of gold from an area of less than 10,000 square feet. Average ore grades exceeded sixteen ounces of gold per ton. So, when we find one of these ore chutes it’s literally a BIG “pay day.” Louis Gignac, the former CEO of the big Canadian gold producer Cambior, once told me, “If Cambior got the Golden Wonder back into production it would fund all of our world-wide exploration projects.”
Cambior geologists understood that in caldera gold deposits of this type, it is more likely than not that multiple ore chutes exist within the vein system….vents in the volcano. With these types of off-the-charts gold grades, it doesn’t take a wide area (aka big environmental footprint) to contain multiple ore chutes with potential for one-half to one million ounces. Similar telluride, epithermal deposits like the Emperor mine in Fiji and the Porgera in Papouasie New-Guinea produced over 10 million ounces each. With our high grades and low cost structure we only need a small fraction of that to be wildly successful.
As always, you’re welcome to contact me directly with any questions or comments: info@lkagold.com
Mr. Abraham’s comments contain no material non-public information. This message is intended to provide investors and shareholders with management’s views and opinions of current operations, objectives, and industry conditions and may contain certain forward-looking statements. For more complete assessment of project and investor risk readers are encouraged to read the Company’s most recent public filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Statements and opinions in this message are made pursuant to the “safe harbor'” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.