Read on for a transcript of an interview with Mr. Javier Orduña, Exploration Manager for Aton Resources (TSXV:AAN). The interview was originally published on CEO.CA here.
Javier Orduña: Hi, Peter.
Peter Bell: Hi Javier, thanks very much for talking with me again. A week ago we were talking about Rodruin and now I’m here reading up on intrusion-related gold systems. Looks like I’ve got some more homework to do!
Javier Orduña: Yes. I think we probably all do, Peter!
Peter Bell: Five kilometers of strike at Abu Gaharish is a good motivation to get up to speed.
Javier Orduña: The classic model for these IR deposits is that the mineralization is usually associated with smaller stocks off the larger intrusives, like the Bohlog granite at our Abu Marawat Concession. It's quite encouraging that we're seeing mineralization associated with tungsten along the whole eastern margin of the Gaharish granite.
Peter Bell: I’m afraid that I was sleeping on this one, too. I overlooked the news about it and hadn't realized just how important it is. As Mark stated in the news release, it’s now probably the top exploration priority after Rodruin.
Javier Orduña: That’s understandable, Peter, we have a few projects where we do an initial phase of work, look at the results to assess what we think it is, and then go back to do a bit more. That is how we targeted the GPR geophysical survey on certain areas, in fact. We identified areas where we thought we might get useful information based on prior work and the large number of targets we have in the Concession. Of course, when we found Rodruin, it jumped straight to the top of the priority queue, and is certainly now our main focus, but we have other good targets that we're continuing to work on.
Peter Bell: It's always a question for the junior miners: How do you prioritize? A lot of people think you need multiple properties in different areas of the world to have multiple kicks at the can, but Aton has such a large single land package that you could need to just stay focused here. And that’s great because you get to know the area better and better the more you work it.
Javier Orduña: Indeed, Peter. We've talked before about how this is such a large area and it is true. There are other large exploration areas around the world, sure, but I spoke at PDAC about how this one is quite special in some ways. Rather than seeing just one particular style of mineralization within our license area, we're seeing several styles.
Peter Bell: You mentioned the Bohlog granite before, are there similarities between it and Abu Gaharish? I recall drawing around the edge of the Bohlog granite on a map with you at one point and discussing how that contact was an area of interest. That sounds similar to what we’re hearing about at Abu Gaharish now.
Javier Orduña: Yes, we do think there are strong similarities. We talked about them together in our first press release back in June last year. What is significant about them both is that you see mineralization actually hosted within these late granites. These Younger Granites are post-orogenic and post-date most of the tectonic activity in the area. They certainly long post-date the volcanic styles of mineralization at Hamama, Rodruin, and Abu Marawat. They come in fairly late in the piece and you're seeing mineralization spatially associated with that. Equally significant, you're seeing mineralization actually within them.
It's a different style of mineralization to some of the orogenic, structurally-controlled mineralization we see in other places. It is certainly very different to the volcanic associated styles of mineralization, such as at Rodruin and Hamama.
Peter Bell: The intrusive part of it makes some sense in broad terms. What does the “reduced” part of the name refer to for the deposit type there?
Javier Orduña: Well, it's a style of mineralization. It's a relatively newly enacted family of gold mineralization that’s only really been recognized since the 90s and the IR clan can be effectively split up into two types, one of which is the reduced type and the other is the oxidized type. The difference is based on the chemistry and the granites. The oxidized type is more associated with porphyry gold style mineralization.
Peter Bell: And how about the reduced type again?
Javier Orduña: It's all about the chemistry of the granites and the mineralizing fluids. They have different geochemical signatures. We tend to see more copper, for example, in the oxidized systems, whereas the reduced systems tend to be more tungsten, bismuth and arsenic rich.
Peter Bell: Okay, thanks. The porphyry in one group and the reduced in another group. Thanks.
Javier Orduña: Yes, basically. I wouldn't get too hung up about terminology though, to be honest. Geologists have a tendency to try to fit things into certain categories, even though there are few mineral deposits that you can actually fit into what you might call a classic model. As an exploration geologist, you want to have an idea of what you're exploring for. What we're looking at here at Abu Gaharish and Bohlog, fits many of the characteristics that are associated with these reduced IR type deposits.
Peter Bell: Interesting to hear that it's almost a cousin of the porphyry copper systems.
Javier Orduña: Yes, it's a cousin but it's a distant cousin.
Peter Bell: And you mentioned the radar survey – that always interested me. When it came out, I looked at it and thought, "What do we do with this?!" Great to see you guys using that at Abu Gaharish now. What's the process of interpreting the GPR like, generally?
Javier Orduña: It's a relatively new technique in mineral exploration that hasn't been used very much because it doesn't conventionally have a great deal of depth penetration. It isn't generally appropriate for mineral exploration, but is often used for civil engineering and is pretty standard there. It’s also used a lot now in looking for kimberlites and paleochannels, for example, and it can quite effective. It just hasn’t been used a great deal for deep stuff in hard rock.
We've used Terravision for the GPR, who I've worked with before. They operate a Russian-designed system that was originally designed to look for water on Mars. It was designed by the Russian space program. The thing that separates it from a lot of other systems is that it has exceedingly high power and works on exceedingly high voltages. That, essentially, gives the radar a lot more penetrative power into the ground. It can, effectively, see a lot deeper and that's why we've used it.
The other advantage is that it's very portable and is very easy to pack up into a couple of large sports bags and put on a plane. With the complexities we have of getting things in and out of the country in Egypt, that portability was one of the things that swung us towards it. The team could just bring it in as excess baggage and that was another reason we used it.
In terms of the interpretation of the data, it's a fairly complex business to be honest with you. It's like other geophysical techniques in that can be a bit opaque and is very dependent on interpretation. It's a bit of a black magic in some ways because you will get responses – you can see clear responses! – but you don't necessarily know what's causing them. It's not as clear cut as EM, for example, where you're identifying conductive bodies in the ground. The GPR identifies responses that could be due to contacts, structures or sulphide mineralization for example, but essentially reflect differences in the piezoelectric properties of the ground.
Peter Bell: All that surface work you're doing there must be essential for giving some structural interpretation to those responses.
Javier Orduña: And that’s a key thing about Abu Gaharish, Peter. In the news releases, we talked about it being a structurally-controlled deposit. It’s a series of veins that we have interpreted from our initial inspection as being a series of ladder-type veins. There are certainly inter-connected structures and the high-grade shoots may be found where we have veins interconnecting, but it’s clearly got a very strong structural control to it. It's not a disseminated gold body.
There are clear structural controls to the vein system which dips to the west. The Main Zone sits just inside the granite, very close to the contact with the surrounding meta-volcanics and sediments, and dips into the granites towards the west.
The working hypothesis we’re using is that it’s a structurally-controlled gold mineralization system. It appears to be dipping at about 45 degrees towards the west, which is a relatively shallow dip.
As you can see from the images, you have these ‘islands’ of granite surrounded by wadi sediments because this particular granite is not as resistant to erosion, so it tends to weather to big, flat, sandy wadi areas. As I say, our working hypothesis is that we have this structural system dipping to the west under the wadi sediments, but we can't see them. We’re thinking about going back and trying some geochemistry to see through the wadi sediments.
So how would do we test this hypothesis? Well, we've gone out and sampled more of these ‘islands’ of granite to the west and that's what we talked about it in the latest release. And we're seeing mineralization in quartz veins away from the Main Zone workings, going into the granite. That's supported our theory as we're seeing mineralization at surface to the west of the Main Zone, which is the direction that the structures appear to be dipping towards.
We also now have the GPR geophysics over that area to the west and believe we can see responses associated with a structural zone that could be a series of veins. The responses could be due to dykes or other features, but we're seeing responses in the area where we would expect to see them, based on our working hypothesis of a structural zone dipping to west. These responses are analogous to the responses over the known mineralization at the Main Zone. So clear as mud, but it all fits together, and appears to back up our working hypothesis, as we now know that there are mineralized quartz veins at surface to the west, and they appear to continue to depth based on the GPR.
Peter Bell: Is that area you sampled to the west located up in the north?
Javier Orduña: No, it is west of the Main Zone at Abu Gaharish. Gaharish North is a separate area and we didn't do the geophysics up there as that's a relatively new discovery. In fact, that's one we again identified from looking carefully at satellite imagery.
Peter Bell: Great. Those satellite images have been so useful for you at Rodruin and elsewhere. I see the area you’re referring to on the maps to the west – the area with all the new samples from this news release right around the GH3 geophysical line. Lots of purple dots out there!
Javier Orduña: We've walked over them and taken ground samples. It's still a first-pass evaluation. Most of what we do is get boots on the ground and see what's actually there. A lot of it is driven initially by looking at satellite imagery as we've talked about before. It's a very useful tool, but you have to go out and walk the ground to see what's actually there.
We're working on the theory that at Abu Gaharish the structural system and mineralization appeared to be dipping to the west and that's why we ran the GPR lines over wadi sediments west of the mineralization where the ancient workings are found at the Main Zone. The results we are getting back up our working hypothesis of what may be there.
Peter Bell: And to confirm that those samples are taken from outcrop, right? There is a lot of wadi sediments above the granite that you could be sampling, I guess.
Javier Orduña: Yes, these are rock samples. That's why we focus on the ‘islands’ of granite, as they give exposure of rock in a sea of sandy, wadi sediments. The geochemistry we’re talking about at the moment is just selective grab samples or channel samples taken at surface from outcropping rock.
We will certainly follow up the mineralization at Gaharish North, which is along strike of Abu Gaharish, northwards along the eastern contact of the granite. When you look at the satellite imagery, you can see that there’s an awful lot of wadi sediment along the eastern edge of the granite. What’s underneath it? Who knows. How do you test it? It's not easy as rock chip samples, but one method we are considering is MMI geochemistry.
Peter Bell: Neat. No B-horizon in the soils out there!
Javier Orduña: No, it's sand. Sand, sand, and more sand. There's no organic horizon whatsoever. To do MMI out there you basically you dig down about 40 centimeters to take the sample. The idea is that the mobile ions move up and down through the cover and are effectively absorbed onto the fines or clays within the cover material. It's more often used in wetter areas with more typical soil horizons, but there have been quite a few studies that have shown that it is effective in dry environments as well. It has been shown to work in arid desert environments.
Peter Bell: And how about the orientation of the sampling coverage – the trenches versus the vein systems. Any comments on all that?
Javier Orduña: Well, we haven't done any trenching here. We're sampling the granites and they are fairly hard. We might do some of that, but I don't think it's necessary here as we've got reasonably good outcrop that provide good rock chip channel profiles.
In areas like the Main Zone, we did one surface chip channel profile with hammer and chisel that returned 31 meters at one gram at surface. With that result, I think we're ready to drill some of these areas.
We will keep doing more follow up work to see if we can find further evidence of mineralized veins at surface and think about how we approach the area as a whole, but the Main Zone now has a good, broad zone of mineralization at surface. We think we're ready to drill that, particularly with the positive results from the geophysics. We are very keen to test some of the structures we’re seeing to the west of the Main Zone under some of these wadi sediments. I would hope within the next year we'll be looking to do a drill program there.
Peter Bell: Thank you. And it’s not trenching – it’s channel chip samples.
Javier Orduña: Yes, rather than actually digging a trench in the ground you're sampling what's at surface. Obviously, you have to be careful about what you're sampling. What we try to do is sample across structures and outcropping veins where possible as opposed to just taking a selective grab sample maybe from a vein that appears to be mineralized. By profiling across the veins, you get a more representative sample.
Peter Bell: Thanks again. Some groups catch flak for sampling along veins with trenches or channel samples.
Javier Orduña: If you have an outcropping vein, you don't sample along it as that's deeply misleading. You sample across it – perpendicular to the strike of mineralization to give a representative sample. If you sample along it, then that's not representative and it's not what we do.
Peter Bell: I wondered as the contact seemed to be trending north and a lot of the samples were close to that contact. I wondered if people thought you might be doing bad things there.
Javier Orduña: In broad terms, the mineralization runs in a roughly north-south direction. There are actually en echelon veins within it that have been worked at the Main Zone. You can see they're really nice sigmoidal veins, which also indicate that it's a structurally-controlled system. An individual vein might be one meter wide, but different veins could strike in a variety of directions within a complex structural system.
What we would always do is sample perpendicular to the strike of the vein. We would certainly not sample along the vein.
Peter Bell: Thanks. No shortage of controversy and negative attention that can go along with some good new results.
Javier Orduña: It's one thing to excavate along the strike so you can get geological understanding of what you're looking at when you found a new structure or something, but we don't really have that problem here so much in Egypt because we don't have a great deal of cover. We have bare rocks sticking out of the ground in most places, so we can get a pretty good sense of what we're looking at.
If you deliberately, or accidently, sample along the vein, then that can be really misleading because it creates the impression that that is the thickness or width of the mineralization, which it’s not. That's why we tend to go into such great detail in our press releases. We put all the information in there and try to make it comprehensive because we want people to see what we're doing and appreciate that we're doing it properly.
Peter Bell: The recent new releases have just been great in that regard, Javier. They're a bit intimidating but they’re essential for anyone who really wants to understand what you’re doing in detail.
Javier Orduña: Yes, we think it's important. I understand that there may be times when we perhaps go into too much detail, but we try to give context and that I feel lends credibility. We are certainly enthusiastic about our results and we try to convey that, too.
Peter Bell: A lot of groups release very selective results and it's great to see the kitchen sink in the recent releases. The full tables of data and everything else – it’s important.
Javier Orduña: I think so, too, but I’m a geologist. If we start getting feedback that it's too much, then I'll be happy to cut back a bit as it takes a fair bit of time to put all this information together. As a group, we think it's important to do.
Peter Bell: There's probably a smaller audience for that depth of information, but it's a more sophisticated audience. It's the kind of people who would be contacting you to ask for that kind of information anyways if they were serious about investing! Putting it out there into public record is probably best practice.
Javier Orduña: And people can just read the highlights if they don’t want all the detail. That's fine. If people really want to get in to it, then they can read the data or even plot some of it themselves!
We're trying to put it out there because we believe we've got a good story to tell. We believe we have some good targets and good projects. We want people to know about them! We're not trying to obscure anything. We're trying to make this clear and transparent for people to access as they see fit.
Peter Bell: And how about the high-grade gold? Some of these numbers at Abu Gaharish are pretty impressive. Not the multi-hundred gram hits that we’ve seen at West Garida, which is on the edge of the Younger Granites close to Hamama West. Is that a useful comparable for deposit type?
Javier Orduña: Good question, Peter. The short answer is that we don't have enough information really at West Garida yet. It potentially has quite a lot of gold, but we're waiting to do some drilling there. It’s quite close to our camp here at Hamama West and is proximal to the Younger Granites. I think West Garida is about 500 or 600 meters away from the contact, off the top of my head.
The mineralization we see at Sir Bakis and Massaghat is fairly close to these Younger Granites. We also see small outcrops of pink granite at Semna, about 300 or 400 meters south of the old mine there. These pink granites there are only about 20 meters wide, but they certainly look like the Younger Granites at Abu Gaharish. So there could be blind or buried granites close to Semna as well.
What is the relationship between the mineralization in these areas and the Younger Granites? We don't really know yet, but the proximity to these Younger Granites is significant.
Peter Bell: I remember that West Garida had some screaming high-grade numbers.
Javier Orduña: Yes. West Garida is an exception as it has coarse gold, the nugget effect. One sample might come back with 20 grams while another might come back with 100 grams. It's hard to repeat those sort of numbers but we've got some good numbers back from Abu Gaharish already. We got up to 45 grams in samples. Plenty of samples with 10-15, 20-25 grams per tonne gold. There are certainly some quartz veins with decent gold grades!
Peter Bell: And those are quartz veins, not some disseminated sulphides.
Javier Orduña: Right. Most of the higher grades are associated specifically with mineralized quartz veins. We've trenched across them at the Main Zone, which is where we have approximately 1 gram over 30 meters. That is a fairly wide gold intercept that could be associated with more of a disseminated or sheeted vein system as we've been talking about at Sir Bakis.
Peter Bell: And the news yesterday indicates that you're also seeing gold in the host rock.
Javier Orduña: Yes. That’s significant because having the gold hosted in the late granites indicates that the gold mineralization is very late in the orogenic cycle. It's not the typical orogenic gold model that occurs earlier during the tectonic activity, it's later than that. These granites are largely post-orogenic, yet they contain structurally-hosted gold mineralization and that suggests this gold we’re seeing is from a different phase of mineralization during the development of the Arabian Nubian shield.
In Egypt, and also on the Arabian side of the shield, we have this suite of Younger Granites, which are alkali-rich and highly evolved, and are associated with tin and tungsten mineralization at deposits such as Abu Dabbab. And they're also associated with molybdenum and fluorine. You may recall that we have the old British tungsten mine at Abu Garida? Well, we also have an old fluorite mine. So we’re seeing gold mineralization as well as tungsten mineralization in the license area, which we feel bears strong resemblances to the Tintina belt through the Yukon and in to Alaska, which is a 600 kilometer-long belt of tungsten-gold mineralization. On a regional tectonic setting, I think we're looking at potentially broad similarities to this area.
Peter Bell: Amazing.
Javier Orduña: As I said, Peter, we have a lot of different types of mineralization within our license area and elsewhere throughout the Egyptian shield.
Peter Bell: Exciting for you guys to be there doing the work to bring that to the world. And it makes it all the more important for you to really document things in a comprehensive way I think.
Javier Orduña: We do what we can, Peter. I’m sure we're not the only people thinking along these lines in terms of the geological potential of Egypt. Other groups have looked at this area and they may not be working here yet, but hopefully other groups will be coming in at some point, and things will improve for attracting mining and mineral exploration investment to Egypt.
Our work over the last year and a half, since we launched the regional exploration program, has really changed our thinking on what we're looking at here.
Peter Bell: It's been impressive just how productive you have been. No shortage of things going on, with major news often. Lots of surprises from various areas that I forget that you’re even working on. It's great.
Javier Orduña: We're a long way away and it can be “out of sight, out of mind”, but we stay busy. We've got the camp here and I'm back at camp now. I was in Cairo for a few months working on the PEA but I'm back down at camp now. We may not be drilling at the moment, but we're working hard to work up a lot of these projects and bring them to drill readiness.
Peter Bell: Very exciting. Working up all those targets creates great potential for some partners to work with you in the future and the month of May is just around the corner and news on the PEA is coming soon!
Javier Orduña: There is going to be more news coming over the next few weeks. We've got some fairly exciting news coming from another exploration area, which we haven't really talked about so far. Keep your eyes open for that in the next couple of weeks. And there are other things going on, which I'm sure you will be hearing about soon.
Peter Bell: I appreciated the outlook in this latest news release with mention of a surface sampling program at Zeno, the test work on geotechnical samples from Hamama West, and trenching at Hamama East. A very nice set of additional programs going on there.
Javier Orduña: The geotechnical work may not be as sexy as the mineral exploration but it's important stuff. It has to be done and we're pushing ahead with it. We're seeing some good results from it so far. The road to Rodruin is ongoing and hopefully we will be there on site within a couple of weeks, and ready to start drilling shortly after Ramadan. Quite a few things going on.
Peter Bell: Well, I will let you get back to it. Thank you very much, Javier!
Javier Orduña: You’re welcome, Peter. Thank you. Goodbye.
Disclaimers
This document contains statements that are forward looking statements and are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning the specific factors disclosed under the heading “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in the Company’s periodic filings with Canadian securities regulators. Such information contained herein represents management’s best judgment as of the date hereof based on information currently available. The Company does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statement.
The technical information contained in this News Release was prepared by Roderick Cavaney BSc, MSc (hons), MSc (Mining & Exploration Geology), FAusIMM, GSA, SME, Vice President, Exploration, of Aton Resources Inc. Mr. Cavaney is a qualified person (QP) under National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.
Peter Bell has been compensated to prepare and distribute this promotional material.
