tists and is, in fact, providing scientists access to informa- ounces, and Teck Cominco one of the world's largest zinc tion that would not be available if it was not exploring miners. these areas. Nautilus is conducting a detailed environEarlier this year, Placer Dome, worked with Nautilus to mental impact assessment to get the facts and determine complete a geophysical survey to locate older, inactive, what if any effect discreet "surgical" mining would have in sulphide fields. This was the world's first geophysical these areas. exploration program directed at locating inactive or 'dead' Environmental studies are ongoing and the results of metal sulphide deposits on the seafloor. Nautilus's interthese will be used to determine the impacts of potential pretation of the geophysics shows its "Solwara 1" deposit mining on both inactive and active deposits. Mining of measured 1.3 km long by 80 m-200 m wide. The grade of individual areas will need to be assessed on a case-by-case Solwara 1 samples, from a weighted average from Placer's basis, as each will have different physical, environmental dredge sampling program as calculated by Nautilus, is and ecological characteristics. 13.7 g/t gold, 10.8% copper, 3.65% zinc and 220 g/t silThis past summer ver. Nautilus partnered Neptune's early with the Woods Hole exploration results are Oceanographic similar. The company Institution and raised approximately Scripps Institution of $18m in October Oceanography to 2005 to fund an locate more deposits aggressive exploration within the company's program in the exploration leases in Kermadec project area the Bismarck Sea in located within New the territorial waters Zealand waters. of Papua New Coring and surface Guinea. Nautilus's sampling were conmission was to go ducted in December where there were 2005 and many samknown deposits and ples were assessed. bring some to the surThe samples resulted face for analysis to see in very high levels of ROV realtime 3D surround navigation computed. how extensive these gold, silver and zinc. (Photo Credit: Nautilus Minerals) The average metal deposits were and to gain engineering data. content of the samA year ago, Placer ples taken were 11.2 Dome, a major gold mining company, conducted the first g/t gold, 122g/t silver, 8.1% copper, 5% zinc and 0.5% drilling program for gold copper seafloor massive sulfides lead. on Nautilus Minerals tenements off the coast of Papua New Guinea. The results were encouraging and enabled Technology Leads the Way Nautilus to become a publicly traded company with Exploration technology for SMS is similar to that used $113m in the bank (as of Dec.11, 2006) with more for offshore oil and gas and for dredging and pipeline layinvestment expected in the next few months. ing. Today's multi beam swath sonar systems are effective Nautilus's current investment partners include a who's at providing a wide view of sea floor features. A trained who in mining and minerals production. Among the eye can pick out targets of interest and go back for a highluminaries on board are; the Russian mining giant, er resolution look or even place an ROV with a camera on Metalloinvest; owners of large iron ore and steel produc- the spot to identify the target. If it looks like a SMS ers; Anglo American PLC, with platinum group metals, deposit, then the drilling rigs come in to assess thickness gold and offshore diamond mines ; Barrick Gold Corp., a and breadth. The technology exists today, and is being gold mining company with reserves of 139 million used to understand the yield potential for certain tracts.
26 MTR January 2007
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