To me the discussion point about drilling at an angle because they thought that the gold was plunging off at an angle does not hold water. If one were to drill through the HGZ zone at an angle then the drill bit would be in the zone for a longer period of time ie. over a 10 foot length rather then a 7 foot length if they had of drilled down through the ground perpendiularly. the lengths would depend on the angles chosen.

So if it is being said that because the drill length is longer in the HGZ and therefore the average gold per ton is less because of this then it would imply that the HGZ is actually small and the the HGZ gold bearing must decrease in a part of the zone. So to get the HGZ grade up one can drill straight through it, the HGZ would be thinner but the grade of gold would be higher over the shorter distance.

I would imagine it would not be very difficult to work out what the true average is, whether one drilled straight through the HGZ or at an angle. All one would have to know is at what angle the drill was angled. So then if one was to assume the perpendicular to it one would know the thickness of the the HGZ and therefore the average grade could be calculated over the thinner HG zone.

I doubt this would have made much of a difference to what was reported. The only thing I can imagine is that they drilled much deeper then the gold bearing zone, and so when the averages were taken, non-bearing portions of the drill kernal would reduce the overall average.

I'm wondering why it is necessary to do ice drilling. In the beginning attempts it may be easier, but if they have established a more horizontal gold bearing zone, could they use hoizontal drilling Like that presently being used by the oil companies to allow the steaming out of oil products to verify what they have?