viking,

I'll try to explain... NOT has previously stated that E1 is exists within a conduit, whilst E2 exists at the throat of a conduit (where it opens and empties into the RoF). E1 and and E2 are different quite animals in this respect. Furthermore, we have not seen very much massive sulphide mineralization at E2. This is why we do not see the terms 'MMS' and 'conduit' used much in discussion or descriptions of E2.

The E2 sulphides that flowed out the conduit and into the RoF appear to exist in a environment where shearing has taken place, as you you might expect along the contact with an instrusive rock body, where rock is being subject to significant pressures, so I believe this is why they are refered to as shear-hosted sulphides, or SHS, - the sulphides have deposited in shear zones. I defer here to any explanations offered by a geologist(s).

It does appear that AT-12 also exists within a conduit, so it will be like E1 in this regard, which is why you would see the same terminology.

What is the significance of the difference? To understand this we must first discuss the nature of the conduits and how they are thought to exist at the RoF.

Imagine a snake, a python, which has swallowed several large eagles, and you can clearly see several bulges in the snake's body as a result. This is basically what a what the structure of a conduit looks like. I use the snake anaolgy because these conduits can be like a snake in terms of how they might curve or 'bend', and the eagles in our snakes belly represent, you guessed it, magmatic Cu-Ni-PGE deposits like E1.

However, E2 is not in the snake's belly somewhere, i.e., the conduit, but in its throat or maybe even its mouth, or imagine maybe the snake having spit-out an eagle. This would be Eagle 2 - the snake puked and the eagle is its mouth or just outside of its mouth. This analogy works to undestand the structure of the conduits and the positions of E1 and E2 within conduits, but that is far as it goes, so we will dispense with the snake analogy now.

As explained to me by John Harvey when I met with him in his office a few weeks back, these conduits are what the chrome, copper, nickel, and PGE's flow through and out of, suspended in magma, and they empty into the RoF (the contact with the instrusive). The chrome due to its properties will flow right through the conduits despite any slow downs, whereas the Cu-Ni-PGE sulphies, due will cool and crystalize more quickly and so they will not always flow right out of the conduit and and empty into the RoF as the chrome does. The bulges in the conduits will effectively trap the sulphides as they slow and cool in theses areas in the conduit, whereas the chrome will flow right through. It does not always happen this way, because as we see with E2 - some Cu-Ni sulphides made it out of the conduit and effectively into the RoF, mixed together with the chrome. In fact, Harvey had mentioned that they now suspect that E2 is not in the the throat of the conduit, as they previously stated, but even further out of the conduit than they first thought ( think of the snake spitting out the 'eagle'). What they are trying to do with the drilling at E2 is track the conduit that the E2 sulphides flowed out of to hopefully find more pods of E1 style mineralization in 'bulge' areas of the conduit.

To help explain this a little further, I will use another analogy. Think of a pipe with bulges in it. Flowing in this pipe is both red and green paint, but the red paint, representing the Cu-Ni-PGE sulphides is much heavier than the green paint (the chrome). This pipe is lying on a slight angle and the paint is flowing out into a channel in the floor. This channel is the RoF. The red, and heavier paint will mostly not make it out of the pipe as it is trapped in teh bulges where it settles and slows, but the green paint flows right out the pipe and into the channel on the floor.

What happened at AT-2 (E2 and BB1) is that some of the sulphides (red paint) made it out of the conduit (pipe) and into the channel (RoF) with the green paint (chrome). This why we see chrome and sulphides 'mixed' togethr at AT-2 creating E2 and BB1. What NOT are trying to do is drill the conduit (the pipe) looking for bulges where the sulphides (red paint) woud have been trapped, creating an E1 style deposit. The problem is would not be easy to drill looking for that conduit if it is deep and is curvy like a snake.

The above should make it clear why the Cu-NI-PGEs are much harder to find than the chrome. The chrome will be easier because it wil have flowed out of the conduits and into the RoF (the 'channel' in our floor analogy above), which is easier to find because they know where the contact with the intrusive is (the red line on the map http://www.norontresources.com/proje... ), whereas much of the Cu-Ni-PGE sulphides will have remained in the conduits, some it of it pooling into high grade deposits in larger areas of the conduits (the bulges) as we have seen with E1. This is not say that the chrome will be found all along the RoF, but I am assume that any gravity anomalies along the RoF will immediately suspected to be chrome. Unfortunately surface and airborne geophysics, such as VTEM, used to detect mag and EM anomolies that can be Cu-Ni-PGE mineraliztion, are limited in depth penetration (about 200m depth for VTEM), so if the conduits containing pods of Cu-Ni-PGE sulphides are any deeper, obviously they are much harder to find or detect. The combination of 'snakey' structure and depth can make the discovery and delineation of magmatic Cu-Ni PGE deposits in this environment a much more difficult process.

The interesting thing about the chrome is that we know it arrived in the RoF via conduits - the same conduits that maybe have carried copper, nickel and PGEs. So with FWR's significant chrome discovery, we should now be wondering where the conduits are that carried that rather significant volume of chrome, and do they contain any Cu-Ni-PGE mineraliztion... AT-12 might be our clue.

Regards,

B.