Notes from GGPHelp Interview with Liam - The Story of Callum Baxter - 31 Aug 2022
Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2022 2:56 pm
Notes from GGPHelp Interview with Liam - The Story of Callum Baxter - 31 Aug 2022
Interview: https://youtu.be/zZ3OMI9kvtc
Notes created using Adobe Premiere Transcript
00:00:25:14 - 00:00:44:16
*Liam
Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. And here we are at GGP Help TV. And I'm pleased to say that I'm here with a very special guest. It's a great team. Come on to the show and join us today. I'm pleased to introduce to you Callum Baxter of Greatland Gold fame. Callum hello sir, welcome to the show.
00:00:45:20 - 00:00:47:06
*Callum
Thanks, Liam. It's good to be here.
00:00:47:17 - 00:00:54:18
*Liam
And where will you be calling in from today? Are you in south west Australia?
00:00:54:18 - 00:01:03:08
*Callum
Yeah, that's right. South coast of Western Australia, which is where I've lived for about 14 years now.
00:01:03:08 - 00:01:27:20
*Liam
And do you I mean, obviously there's so many questions that are on the tip of my tongue this morning to ask you. But just as we sort of ease ourselves into this, because it's quite early here in the UK and um, are you a surfer, are you a walker, do you like to cycle, what sort of out and about activities do you like to do now that you've moved away from a desk environment?
00:01:28:21 - 00:01:56:13
*Callum
Yeah, certainly I'm an outdoor person and that's what sort of got me into geology in the first instance after leaving high school. But now, yeah, we, we have forests close by and also have a small farm which we live on with animals, cattle farm and, and we're close to the beach as well. And I've always had a love of sailing in the ocean.So yeah, we tick a few boxes here and I'm keeping busy doing all of that.
00:01:57:09 - 00:02:07:17
*Liam
Super. That's grand. Okay, so I've got some questions for you this morning. Just start right back at the beginning. And where did you… where did you grow up?
00:02:08:12 - 00:02:48:07
*Callum
Well, I grew up in a couple of different locations. My father was a mining engineer out of Nottingham and my mother was from Edinburgh and father worked with various UK companies. He got transferred to Australia when I was very young. So, we lived on the east coast near Sydney in Newcastle for a number of years and then when I started high school we moved to Western Australia. So, I've had a few different locations of where I've lived, but pretty much mining industry based for my whole life.
00:02:48:07 - 00:03:05:18
*Liam
What was you into as you were growing up? Sort of… what things did you do as a sort of between a child and a teen with your…were your outdoorsy, were you indoorsy and I'm going to assume straight way off the bat you were an outdoorsy kind of person, having already spoke about it?
00:03:05:18 - 00:03:42:05
*Callum
I'm sure yeah that's true. Yeah, definitely outdoor focused and but academia wasn't bad. I was quite okay and cooped up in a classroom. But I did enjoy the outdoor pursuits and I started sailing at quite a young age and enjoyed getting out and about doing that. But I suppose in my sort of teenage years I was quite focused on aviation actually, but when I finished high school, I didn't follow that pathway and I moved into geology, which has been quite enjoyable.
00:03:43:17 - 00:03:51:22
*Liam
Which I'm.. I was leading to my next question. What was eight-year-old Callum’s dream of what he was going to do when he grew up?
00:03:53:03 - 00:04:24:06
*Callum
I was probably hoping to be a pilot of some sort with a fixed wing or helicopter when I was that age. And I suppose I enjoyed the studies, but I also enjoyed the outdoor pursuits. But looking back on it now, I don't really miss not being a pilot, but I was fortunate enough to sort of discover geology and enjoy that pursuit outdoors.
00:04:24:06 - 00:04:36:18
*Liam
Did you get your PPL, I've gone off script now. Sorry, I'm a plane geek myself, so I just thought of that out there. Did you sort of pursue your PPL at some point at all?
00:04:36:18 - 00:04:47:20
*Callum
No, I haven't. In fact, I have thought about it occasionally in the past couple of years. But I'm in love with yachts more than I am aircraft. So, I'm sticking with the yachts.
00:04:49:14 - 00:05:06:09
*Liam
Yeah. So, I suppose that would become the thing isn't, do I buy a boat or do I buy a plane and if yachting is your passion, then it's going to be a boat every time. So, moving on from there, when you finished high school and your attention turned to Uni, what was it that made you go into geology?
00:05:07:17 - 00:06:14:06
*Callum
Yeah, I was a very much a science-based person in high school. You know, I did all the boring physics, chemistry, mathematics, English, etc. and then I was looking at what to do at university after finishing school and really geology was the favoured pathway for me because I really enjoyed the outdoors and I also enjoyed the science aspect of it.
So, learning more about rocks and the evolution of the earth was really attractive to me and I enjoyed university and met a lot of good friends as well. The field trips were always the highlight, being out and about in different locations in Western Australia and you start to realize how varied the profession of geology actually is. It's not just being in a mine, extracting a mineral, it's sort of, it's also the pursuit of discoveries and exploration plus also at an extreme is planetary geology or environmental geology. So, I would recommend anybody thinking about it to take that profession pathway.
00:06:14:06 - 00:06:20:11
*Liam
You graduated in 1991 with an undergraduate qualification. What came next? What was your first job?
00:06:21:07 - 00:07:22:13
*Callum
Yeah, fortunately in Western Australia it's quite a vibrant mining industry and as a student at a local university you quite often get invited to do vacation work with companies. So, I was actually working in the industry from when I was a second-year student, primarily as a field assistant alongside geologists and it was exploration as well.
So, a lot of soil sampling work and ground geophysical work and just general camp maintenance, four-wheel drive maintenance, lots of flat tyres and it's just a thorough adventure, which is fantastic.
So yeah, after I graduated university, I moved into exploration in the Goldfields in Western Australia and in 1993 was fortunate to be part of a large gold discovery in the north of Western Australia, which is still being mined today.
00:07:22:13 - 00:07:46:08
*Liam
Wow. I mean, what must that be like being an exploration geologist where you'll get these cores are coming up or the samples coming up after an RC drill and you're finding what you're expecting. I'm guessing the crew on the ground are getting excited at this point.
00:07:46:08 - 00:08:32:21
*Callum
Oh, very much so. And it's really quite unique and quite fortunate for me to have been involved in discoveries that were so large from an early stage, because it really gets you in a mindset of what a big deposit actually looks like when you're exploring for them. Now, there's a lot of small deposits around the planet which have been mined stop, start.
But when you find the real big ones, they've got the unique fingerprints about them that if you haven't actually seen it in the flesh, it's quite hard to understand. So, to be part of big discoveries from day one, essentially for myself was really quite enlightening and it sort of set the stage for everything that came from the next 30 years for me.
00:08:32:21 - 00:08:53:00
*Liam
In 2006, you did your master's and at the time your name after some research late one night appears in a couple of tenements known as the e38, 1685, 6 and … today we know that area is Ernest Giles, what drew you back then in 2004?
00:08:56:06 - 00:11:07:14
*Callum
Jeez, really there's nowhere to hide these days you've done some homework in the.. well, being the eternal exploration geologist that I am, I’m always trawling data sets for things that have been overlooked in exploration. So, there's a lot of publicly available data from historical work going back to the 1950s, particularly in Australia.
So, I was looking through some aeromagnetic data which was quite remote in Western Australia and I recognised this large magnetic high which was way in the northern margin of the Yukon Craton and being a bit technical here the Yukon cratons the lump of rock that holds most of the gold deposits in Western Australia, such as Kalgoorlie and Leonora or Leinster etc.
There's quite a lot. It covers a huge area and a lot of the north eastern portions of it in towards central Western Australia are covered by more recent sediments. And so, it really was thinking about undercover exploration back then in the early 2000s and saw this incredible aeromagnetic anomaly which was sort of a hook like feature which stretched for over 100 kilometres.
And I thought, wow, if that's a greenstone belt, it's never actually been recognized in any formal documentation and it could potentially host another multi-million ounce gold deposit, which, you know, all the other greenstone belts in Western Australia hold a gold deposit of some degree, some very large such as Kalgoorlie, which is just a super deposit, and no one's ever done any exploration over any of this area and magnetics before to any major degree. So yeah, set about acquiring the tenements which covered the area and that project still in Greatland’s folder or portfolio today.
00:11:07:14 - 00:11:48:19
*Liam
I mean how do you… once you've sort of secured the tenement, it's so… such a vast area of land. How did you start to whittle down as to where you wanted to start poking around? Is there a process that you'd go through to sort of start narrowing down your search? Because from an outsider's point of view, I've only got what I've really experienced on TV on the Outback Gold Hunters, and I can't imagine just sort of trawling around, pushing a… digging a small hole and using a metal detector is kind of the way to do it when you're looking for something that's as big as that.
00:11:48:19 - 00:14:06:00
*Callum
Yeah. Well, again, every large exploration opportunity requires a different approach as to how you attack it. So, there isn't sort of a ten steps that you take, but with any good exploration project, it's always based on good research and data compilation. So, there's a lot of time spent getting every piece of data that's already been collected and then working out what you need to do to try and hone in on targets from there.
And in the case of Ernest Giles, the first thing that we weren't quite sure of was how deep is the cover sequence? So, the younger rocks that sit on top, not quite sure how far down it is to the Archean basement. So, you really need to work that out in order… and also because we were covering such a large area, it was roughly 100 kilometres north south.
The depth of cover can potentially vary quite a lot over those 100 kilometres. And so, we were looking carefully at the area magnetics and looking for traditional structural type targets, which you can see in the aeromagnetic response.
And then we also decided to use what was called at the time deep sensing geochemistry or mobile metal ion geochemistry, which can help you sort of hone in on large areas, but small areas that were ready for drill targeting in the initial sense and very much of the initial drill program there, which I think was back in 2010, was a wildcat program effectively based on aeromagnetic and som… a little bit of geochemistry looking at some structural targets.
And we're fortunate enough to get some elevated levels of gold returned from that drilling and also some significant sulphide intercepts as well. So, an exploration success. But the thing and another important thing we got out of that program is we got hard depth debasement and what the cover sequence look like, which then feeds back into your next exploration program of what geophysics can we deploy, what kind of drilling can we deploy, etc.
00:14:09:23 - 00:14:34:06
*Liam
With the… I'm going to go back half a step here. The process of that geochemistry, yeah. How… what kind of a process is that? Is it just a case of taking some samples and adding some chemicals to them that then sort of show you what that's made up of? Or is it a little bit more in depth or what's kind of… what kind of a process is that process?
00:14:34:06 - 00:16:17:16
*Callum
Yeah, it's well, it's quite an involved process. There are people, geologists who spend the profession specialising in geochemistry. So, it's is quite a science in itself. But effectively what we're doing is taking a sample of dirt from the surface and picking a particular sieve fraction.
So, whether it's a coarse, a plus two millimetres or less than two millimetres or really quite fine, very small particles, and then either applying chemicals to that to extract certain elements or using an x ray XRF machines, X-ray diffraction to determine the relative amounts of different metals or pathfinder elements in those samples, generally, you take samples, a spacing of about 100 or 200 meters, if you can, and then just a simple grid pattern and looking at the relative responses from each of those samples and it allows you to hone in on particular areas. But in the case of Ernest Giles, you're looking for…all big deposits, they have a big footprint.
And when I say big footprint, there's alteration systems around the outside of these deposits which can extend for several kilometres. So, in the geochemistry, you can quite often see the alteration systems as well, not just the elevated metals such as gold or copper. And because there is a bit of an art involved in the science, but it's quite a powerful tool.
00:16:19:00 - 00:16:54:05
*Liam
I think you mentioned when you were speaking with Noel with a Coffee with Samso YouTube channel that as time has gone on that's actually something you and the team of people that you've been working over have time refined, that actually helps you identify these deep, deep undercover sequences.
Is that something that just evolved or is that something that sort of professionally, as you've moved through your years as a geologist, it's something that you wanted to sort of pursue.
00:16:54:05 - 00:18:55:04
*Callum
Yeah, well, the process of finding deposits, if you work in the Goldfields for example in Western Australia 20 or 30 years ago there was pretty much prescription of do A then B then C and that worked to a large extent. And then you get to a point of diminishing returns where deposits get found by doing A, B and C and so and also… all those deposits were either poking out of the ground or they weren’t very far down, let's say five or ten meters.
And then if you want to find more deposits, then you have to start tapping into different workflows and techniques.
And let's take mobile metal ions, for example, something that have been around since the 90’s, but no one really deployed it in any with any enthusiasm. However, when I was using it in the 90’s and in the 2000s you could… I convinced myself that you could actually see these footprints.
It's quite a blunt tool and it's sort of a blurry lens. But nonetheless, when you're honing in on from, say, a thousand square kilometres, you want to get down to, let's say one square kilometre, then it's quite a powerful tool.
And so,when we were pushing into the Paterson with great lens and looking at the cover depth, so it's something that we had to use as another part of the tool kit along with the geophysics in determining where we were going to drill holes.
And also, it helps you rank the targets as well. They always have maybe five or six targets and you know, which one do we want to drill first? Which is our highest priority? And it's just another tool that allows you to prioritise the drill sequence.
00:18:56:23 - 00:19:09:10
*Liam
And these say five or six targets. Sorry, just a question that's popped into my mind. Do you get to name the targets or these targets named for you?
00:19:09:10 - 00:19:47:08
*Callum
Yeah. Being a sailor, I'm a bit superstitious. And if an area or target's already got a name for some reason, then you don't change the name of the boat so Havieron for example was pre named by Newcrest and they may have had a slightly different pronunciation for it, but nonetheless the name stuck.
But if it's a completely virgin target then I'll throw a new name on it, but generally try and keep a local theme like maybe name it after a nearby hill or you know a nearby lake or whatever, just some kind of topographic feature.
00:19:48:06 - 00:20:04:06
*Liam
But that never happened with Scallywag, did it? I've just put two and two together now, because you've gone for a Pirates of the Caribbean theme with all those names, is that where that has all come from?
00:20:04:06 - 00:20:40:19
*Callum
Well, again, Scallywag itself was already named. It already had a name and so we didn't change the name of Scallywag itself. And really that name was just for the broad curved feature or folded sequence. So, you can see in the aero magnetics that’s off to the west of the Havieron and then yeah the, the team at Greatland picked up on the nautical theme and then the pirates started flowing which was great to see.
00:20:40:19 - 00:20:51:18
*Liam
And I still can't pronounce the one of old squid features, which is just off to the northwest of Havieron itself… Architheuthis? How would you pronounce the two.
00:20:52:01 - 00:20:56:22
*Callum
Architheuthis , which is basically a giant squid?
00:20:56:22 - 0:21:26:03
*Liam
Yeah, that one when you look at on Google, it's one of the characters, it's all ugly and giant squid like. Anyway, back to the.. to my questions. Between 2006 and 2016, you grew Greatland Gold with projects of Warrentina, Firetower, Bromus and Ernest Giles but you were still looking for that project that would satisfy your goal.
What made you start snooping around the Paterson and how did you conclude the E454701 was the tenement that you wanted?
00:21:26:03 - 00:23:13:00
*Callum
Yeah, I suppose I've told this or I've answered this question a few times, but I never tire of it. But with Greatland’s and me and exploration geologists, we’re always looking for new opportunities. And we had some success for Firetower and Ernest Giles and then former CEO Gervaise Heddle joined the company in 2016 and Gervaise was also very keen to look at new opportunities.
And so, opportunities were coming across our desk, you know, several a week and quite often most of them end up in the bin for whatever reason. But Gerviase contacted one of his colleagues in Melbourne and just asked the question you got any good projects and back came this one called Havieron and it was in the name of a private company called Pacific Trends based in Melbourne at the time.
And I still vividly remember the conference call where Sam Garrett, the geologist working with Pacific Trends was showing us the Geophysical target and also the Scallywag area and I saw the scale of the Havieron target and thought, well, that looks fairly interesting at face value, but we'll have to take it off line and have a bit more of a look at it.
So yeah, it was really quite interesting at face value from a geophysical point of view and really that's where it all started, our involvement in the Paterson.
00:23:15:05 - 00:23:40:00
*Liam
And there's so many parts to this from… and I've been told that the you and you guys had a… it is some kind of a legend for older shareholders. I don't know it was a little bit before my time, Has Greatland still got the Jute (Jeep) or is that been moved to its own retirement plan now.
00:23:40:00 - 00:23:45:15
*Callum
No, I'm pretty sure the company still has the Jute, fantastic.
00:23:46:06 - 00:24:33:09
*Liam
It's… I don't know why, but for some of the older shareholders, it's very important to them. So, I hope they keep that on. And so, you'll…you've decided that you're obviously going to do that to deal with Pacific Trends. And you've set that up and you've got Havieron, which at the time is the entire area, not just the 12 blocks, but also the blocks of the Scallywag area as well.
And obviously, Havieron is the big, big magnetic anomaly compared to the rest of it. Was that your instant go to or actually did you have to spend some time looking at the other targets to deduce which one you wanted to look at first?
00:24:33:09 - 00:26:12:10
*Callum
We were looking at a few other targets, not just Havieron. And not long after we acquired E4701, we met a local prospector who held the adjoining Black Hills license and so we effectively bought that as well because we liked that particular target also and also we were scanning for other targets as well.
And back then in 2016, 2017, ground was fairly open through that part of the Paterson, Rio Tinto hadn't made any major announcements but we knew at that stage and Telfer was pretty quiet. So, there was some areas where we were able to lodge exploration license applications as well, but that that all changed rapidly in 2018. But certainly, Havieron was one of our major focuses in terms of the targets.
But you really don't… when you move into a new area, you don't just want one target, you want several. So, we were sort of trying to bring in enough that could satisfy a good exploration effort for Greatland in the Paterson. But we didn't want to overcook as well. We didn't want to take on too much ground, we just couldn't service. So really it was quite a measured approach. But still we got a lot of good ground at the time.
00:26:12:10 - 00:26:27:23
*Liam
Yeah. What's it like trying to get out to somewhere like Havieron? It's about 45 kilometres away from Telfer. There's no easy direct route. Well, what I mean, how long did it take to get out there? The first time you went and visited the ground?
00:26:27:23 - 00:28:00:12
*Callum
Yeah. Well, being an exploration geologist where we've pushed into frontiers for many years, it for me, it's not that hard. Sorry to brag, but to actually get out on the ground, it does take a lot of forward planning and a lot of safety involved, a lot of communications, but a lot of research into looking at satellite imagery and aerial photography to work out where the vehicle accesses and where the potential pitfalls are.
So, we're used to long journeys and we're used to being out in a Jute with a fridge and a couple of swags and some shovels in case you get bogged. And the main trick for us of actually getting on site the first time was, was a lot of the historic exploration tracks through that part of Paterson were quite overgrown with very small shrubs about waist high.
And so, we spent a lot of time driving over those and getting a few flat tires along the way. But yeah, we're used to that kind of thing and we eventually made it on site and I think there was a photograph taken by Ben who was a geologist working for Greatland for many years and my cell phone… where he's taken a photo of me walking on the top of a sand dune, looking down on the drill site before we drill any holes. And so it's pretty much just virgin territory at that stage.
00:28:03:00 - 00:28:15:13
*Liam
Because the few pictures that that seem to come about, it's a really beautiful part of the country, isn't it, with all the dunes and shrubbery. And I mean, you've seen it, so I'll let you talk about it.
00:28:16:18 - 00:29:02:03
*Callum
Yeah. Well, all the outback's beautiful from the forests to the deserts and the oceans, now being an exploration geologist yeah… You are really fortunate to be able to travel to some very remote locations that not many people get to see. And yeah, so it's quite special. But the desert has its own attraction. I do enjoy the desert, but yep, just a few safety things you've got to be aware of when you're going into those regions.
Obviously lack of water and distance to emergency first aid services. So, we take a lot of precautions and but thankfully we've always been safe and achieved what we've wanted to achieve.
00:29:03:09 - 00:29:18:05
*Liam
I guess being an exploration… that the keys in that term exploration geologist that makes sense but only an exploration geologist would be one of the few people in the world that says, I quite enjoy being in the desert.
00:29:18:05 - 00:29:29:08
*Callum
Okay. For us it's very similar to someone tell you they enjoy standing on the top of Mount Everest. But probably not my favourite thing to do but obviously some people like it.
00:29:31:22 - 00:29:48:02
*Liam
And then what was it like when that… presumably an email dropped into your inbox, it just said 103m @ 3.5 grams per tonne and 128m @ 7.4 grams per tonne.
00:29:48:02 - 00:31:03:07
*Callum
Oh amazing. Yeah. Outstanding. Startling, but I have seen some pretty outstanding results in the past as well. And… but it certainly gets your heart started and then you realize things are going to get a lot more busy from there. And, you know, the laboratory are very good. They are you know, the information remains very confident. So, and there's telephone discussions in advance of emails being sent only about half an hour, an hour, just them explaining to you the quality control processes and why they've validated it or how they validated these results and why they're sending you the results.
And they have their full support behind the results because, of course, if the laboratories made an error of some sort, then there can be some… a lot of explaining to do. And so, we make sure that everything is full, all the I’s are dotted and t’s are crossed before receiving the formal email confirmation. But yeah, it's very exciting that from the first hole to get a result like that is an outstanding achievement.
00:31:03:07 - 00:31:17:15
*Liam
Because if I'm if I'm right in saying you've now got part of HAD05, which is where those results have come from and that shows as your own keepsake, is that right?
00:31:17:15 - 00:31:28:15
*Callum
I do have a small piece of drill core from HAD05 here. It was presented to me by the company when I left about a year ago.
00:31:28:15 - 00:32:06:02
*Liam
It's just awesome and I'm going to change that completely. Now, one of the shareholder legends that you may or may not know was a 3D image of what could only be described as sorry to say this C**k and balls, it's been termed famously as Callum’s C**k and balls. I'm sorry to bring this up. We've spent a long-time debating, theorising, postulating as to where this image was and actually looking at it yesterday it’s quite obvious now when I was bringing this together, but what was that image of and did you mean… did you leave that there on purpose? For us to look at it?
00:32:06:02 - 00:32:11:06
*Callum
Yeah. Well, firstly, I didn't coin the description. So, there’s disclaimer for me there.
00:32:11:11 - 00:32:16:06
*Liam
No, definitely not. Definitely not.
00:32:16:06 - 00:33:30:22
*Callum
That image was one of our early 3D representations of our initial 2.5D modelling of the gravity and magnetics, and our modelling put forward modelling process was effectively done in 2.5D, which is a series of two images built up in Plan View and then we reprocess it to push it into more of a 3D sense.
And it was really just to give people an idea of the scale of what we were looking at, even after a couple of early drill holes. And that's always been the message, really primary message behind all of Greatland’s communication is that the scale of the Havieron target and now deposit is rather large and you can see it in the even before we drilled a hole into it. And that's effectively what led us to become involved in Havieron in the first place. It's just the scale of the geophysical response and now the scale of the mineralisation.
00:33:30:22 - 00:33:39:05
*Liam
How long did it take to get under the cover with the drill? Do you know by any chance, just off of top of your head.
00:33:39:05 - 00:33:57:08
*Callum
The cover sequence is 400 meters and it depends on how you drill it. In the initial sense, when we were drilling with the first couple of holes, they were vertical and we punched those down in about 6 to 8 hours down to the top of basement….
00:33:57:12 - 00:33:57:19
*Liam
Okay.
00:33:58:02 - 00:34:26:06
*Callum
… with our RC technique but these days because a lot of the drilling is guided or navi drill the… and they're angled the pre collars through the cover sequence have to be very accurate and so a lot more time is taken to drill those so it does take longer to drill a pre collar these days than it did than we did in back in 2018.
00:34:26:06 - 00:34:48:21
*Liam
And that must be an art form in itself when, you know, you start looking at the.. as sort of a 3D plan of Havieron with 300-400 drill holes in it, actually threading the needle, as it were, exactly where they need to. Those drillers must be very clever at what they do.
00:34:48:21 - 00:35:52:17
*Callum
Yeah fantastic. It… one of the things that helped us out a lot it Havieron from the first drill program was that we had the benefit of more modern drill equipment which could accurately target depths we were looking at. 30 years ago a 600 metre hole was very hard to drill and successfully get it to depth, but we had much better equipment.
So, these days the equipment combined with the skill set of the drill is amazing. And hats off to the drillers. They are hitting a box within several square meters at, let's say, plus 600 meters depth, which is quite… a very… requires a very intricate skill set and they're very experienced. So, hats off to DDH1 and the other drill teams on site plus also Newcrest and the Greatland doing a fantastic job in hitting those targets at such great depths.
00:35:52:17 - 00:36:09:10
*Liam
Did you expect to go as deep as Greatland have gone? Did you have sort of an idea in mind as to how deep you need to go? Or is this sort of when you look at it, is it actually bigger than you ever imagined?
00:36:09:10 - 00:37:09:05
*Callum
Yeah. Oh, yeah. This strangely, I knew we had to go this deep from day one because that's what the geophysics was telling us. You get to a point where even if you drill, let's say two kilometres deep, you're probably not going to get there in a mining sense, even if you have a very large mine extracting a lot of material, probably not going to get there in many years.
So, you get to a stage where you think, well, it's not really worth us drilling a hole that deep because why don't we just drill it from underground once we've sort of mined out a little bit more and it doesn't take as long to drill the hole and yeah, we understand the deposit a bit better, but you can see in the geophysics that that this thing definitely has depth potential and all the drilling to date definitely proves that's the case.
00:37:09:05 - 00:37:34:10
*Liam
I'm still looking at that image on the, on your TV screen there on your back wall. I can see now, obviously, there's the main ore body and there's the high-grade zone with the Breccia running through it, the two smaller areas… is one of those the eastern Breccia was at that point was that not even part of the realization?
00:37:34:19 - 00:38:50:02
*Callum
Now the eastern breccia hasn't been specifically pulled out of that particular model that you're looking at? Primarily, we're just looking at the model you're looking at is just seeing the broad magnetic and gravity responses from the deposit and the reason why it's there, I think I haven't got the image in front of me, but I understand the magnetics are shown in red there.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sort of looks like a bit a rugby ball shape all end to end. And the reason why it appears to taper off at depth is because you lose resolution in the geophysical data because that geophysical data was collected from a 50 meter line spaced airborne survey, which the plane would have been flying anyway between 50 and 40 to 70 meters above the surface of the ground.
So, the sensor can only see so far down before the signal gets blocked by all the sediment sitting over the top of it. So, there's no reason to suggest that magnetic response doesn't continue at depth. It's just that from where we sense that magnetic data, the signal just diminished to almost nothing when we were looking so deep.
00:38:51:07 - 00:39:03:02
*Liam
Okay. And would you have explored those? Have we explored the two very small areas that sit off to each side of it, or do they actually… just have we? That's the question. Have we explored those two small areas?
00:39:04:04 - 00:39:28:13
*Callum
That… have holes been drilled into those areas? To be honest, I'm not sure. Before I left Greatland, I believe that none of them had been drilled. I know there's been some satellite holes drilled since I've left, but I think they're primarily to the north. So potentially those other areas haven't been drilled yet.
00:39:28:13 - 00:39:49:21
*Liam
Okay. And I'm going to go back to Ernest Giles, if I may. From what I can see, it has been a labour of love for you over many, many years. I can't help but feel that you've got some unfinished business with it, as you've been associated with it now since 2004. Do you think we could see you back on the ground down there next year once drilling starts.
00:39:54:01 - 00:40:59:03
*Callum
Back on the ground at Ernest Giles, well, that's no reason why not, but I would have to be obviously invited by the company if, if they wanted me to go out there. But you know that exploration isn't all about one person. It's always a team effort. There's.. that people have forward modelling geophysics, but, you know, in collaboration with other people's input, other people are doing forward planning for drill programs and site preparation, etc..
So, it's always a team effort. It's not never just one person, but you know, if, if the and Greatland has got a very good exploration team in house, all those people were effectively handpicked a lot by myself and they're very competent and they definitely know their stuff. So, I think Greatland is pretty much… can handle itself going forward. But, you know, I'm always on the end of the telephone if they want to have a chat about anything to do with Ernest Giles.
00:40:59:03 - 00:41:14:09
*Liam
I was going to ask you what your, what you do now that you've say taken a back step from the office. But as we have already established, your time is spent largely yachting. What kind of a boat do you have? Let's go. Let's go there. What? What kind of a boat you have.
00:41:18:00 - 00:41:56:18
*Callum
At the moment? I've just got a motorboat, but which is about six meters long. And I've been desperately trying to find a yacht to replace my old one, which I got rid of a few years ago. But the market's been so tight, particularly during the pandemic, that I've really struggled to actually find one.
So, I'm still searching and I hope to be in the Mediterranean in a couple of months again looking at some boats. So hopefully it's not too far away and probably something in the 50-foot range.
00:41:58:08 - 00:42:12:18
*Liam
Lovely. And I've just got some quickfire questions now, if I may, just to sort of wrap this this amazing conversation up with you. And if you've got a favourite Scallywag target.
00:42:12:18 - 00:42:20:20
*Callum
They're all my favourite targets. Okay. I never have a favourite child. They're all wonderful.
00:42:20:20 - 00:42:25:06
*Liam
And in the office, looking at data or out in the field handling cores.
00:42:27:21 - 00:42:39:23
*Callum
Ah both, yeah it's exciting when you come across an opportunity looking at a computer screen but then being out in the field to get the target tested is great as well.
00:42:39:23 - 00:42:45:10
*Liam
If you could tell just qualified Callum anything, what words of wisdom would you pass on to him now?
00:42:53:07 - 00:43:07:01
*Callum
Stick to your knitting comes to mind. Yeah. And if you enjoy something, then the old saying is you'll never work a day in your life. So, find a profession you enjoy.
00:43:07:01 - 00:43:14:13
*Liam
And a bit more of a personal question. What's your favourite thing to cook on a barbecue?
00:43:14:13 - 00:43:15:21
*Callum
Oh, that would have to be a good steak.
00:43:16:08 - 00:43:30:11
*Liam
Fair play. And the question that's on everybody's end their lips, they'd be dying to ask, how big do you think Havieron’s going to be?
00:43:30:11 - 00:43:42:15
*Callum
It's very large. I think it's a… it certainly is looking like it's going to be plus 10 million ounces gold equivalent and it and… sky's the limit from there.
00:43:44:08 - 00:43:55:19
*Liam
Finally, as the biggest single shareholder of Greatland Gold, do you have any final comments about anything that you'd like to share with the fellow shareholders?
00:43:55:19 - 00:44:35:18
*Callum
I'm really pleased that a lot of shareholders have come on the journey with Greatland and myself and now shout out to the previous CEO, Gervaise Heddle who did a fantastic job, and also existing chairman Alex Borelli and non-exec Clive Latcham and the new team that's in place at Greatland working very hard and, you know, pleased that we've had a lot of support over the years. And we'll never forget the shareholders.
00:44:36:00 - 00:44:54:02
*Liam
Callum, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come and let me ask questions of you. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this, and I really hope that sometime in the future we can sit down and talk again, because I could listen to your stories and what you've got to say for hours. So, thank you so much for coming on to the show today.
00:44:58:19 - 00:45:06:04
*Callum
Thanks for the opportunity, Liam. It's been great to have a chat and I look forward to catching up again in the future.
00:45:06:04 - 00:45:14:11
*Liam
And with that, thank you very much for joining us today on GGPHelp TV, my names Liam and I'll see you soon. Thank you and goodbye.
Download link for PDF with Images:
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Interview: https://youtu.be/zZ3OMI9kvtc
Notes created using Adobe Premiere Transcript
00:00:25:14 - 00:00:44:16
*Liam
Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. And here we are at GGP Help TV. And I'm pleased to say that I'm here with a very special guest. It's a great team. Come on to the show and join us today. I'm pleased to introduce to you Callum Baxter of Greatland Gold fame. Callum hello sir, welcome to the show.
00:00:45:20 - 00:00:47:06
*Callum
Thanks, Liam. It's good to be here.
00:00:47:17 - 00:00:54:18
*Liam
And where will you be calling in from today? Are you in south west Australia?
00:00:54:18 - 00:01:03:08
*Callum
Yeah, that's right. South coast of Western Australia, which is where I've lived for about 14 years now.
00:01:03:08 - 00:01:27:20
*Liam
And do you I mean, obviously there's so many questions that are on the tip of my tongue this morning to ask you. But just as we sort of ease ourselves into this, because it's quite early here in the UK and um, are you a surfer, are you a walker, do you like to cycle, what sort of out and about activities do you like to do now that you've moved away from a desk environment?
00:01:28:21 - 00:01:56:13
*Callum
Yeah, certainly I'm an outdoor person and that's what sort of got me into geology in the first instance after leaving high school. But now, yeah, we, we have forests close by and also have a small farm which we live on with animals, cattle farm and, and we're close to the beach as well. And I've always had a love of sailing in the ocean.So yeah, we tick a few boxes here and I'm keeping busy doing all of that.
00:01:57:09 - 00:02:07:17
*Liam
Super. That's grand. Okay, so I've got some questions for you this morning. Just start right back at the beginning. And where did you… where did you grow up?
00:02:08:12 - 00:02:48:07
*Callum
Well, I grew up in a couple of different locations. My father was a mining engineer out of Nottingham and my mother was from Edinburgh and father worked with various UK companies. He got transferred to Australia when I was very young. So, we lived on the east coast near Sydney in Newcastle for a number of years and then when I started high school we moved to Western Australia. So, I've had a few different locations of where I've lived, but pretty much mining industry based for my whole life.
00:02:48:07 - 00:03:05:18
*Liam
What was you into as you were growing up? Sort of… what things did you do as a sort of between a child and a teen with your…were your outdoorsy, were you indoorsy and I'm going to assume straight way off the bat you were an outdoorsy kind of person, having already spoke about it?
00:03:05:18 - 00:03:42:05
*Callum
I'm sure yeah that's true. Yeah, definitely outdoor focused and but academia wasn't bad. I was quite okay and cooped up in a classroom. But I did enjoy the outdoor pursuits and I started sailing at quite a young age and enjoyed getting out and about doing that. But I suppose in my sort of teenage years I was quite focused on aviation actually, but when I finished high school, I didn't follow that pathway and I moved into geology, which has been quite enjoyable.
00:03:43:17 - 00:03:51:22
*Liam
Which I'm.. I was leading to my next question. What was eight-year-old Callum’s dream of what he was going to do when he grew up?
00:03:53:03 - 00:04:24:06
*Callum
I was probably hoping to be a pilot of some sort with a fixed wing or helicopter when I was that age. And I suppose I enjoyed the studies, but I also enjoyed the outdoor pursuits. But looking back on it now, I don't really miss not being a pilot, but I was fortunate enough to sort of discover geology and enjoy that pursuit outdoors.
00:04:24:06 - 00:04:36:18
*Liam
Did you get your PPL, I've gone off script now. Sorry, I'm a plane geek myself, so I just thought of that out there. Did you sort of pursue your PPL at some point at all?
00:04:36:18 - 00:04:47:20
*Callum
No, I haven't. In fact, I have thought about it occasionally in the past couple of years. But I'm in love with yachts more than I am aircraft. So, I'm sticking with the yachts.
00:04:49:14 - 00:05:06:09
*Liam
Yeah. So, I suppose that would become the thing isn't, do I buy a boat or do I buy a plane and if yachting is your passion, then it's going to be a boat every time. So, moving on from there, when you finished high school and your attention turned to Uni, what was it that made you go into geology?
00:05:07:17 - 00:06:14:06
*Callum
Yeah, I was a very much a science-based person in high school. You know, I did all the boring physics, chemistry, mathematics, English, etc. and then I was looking at what to do at university after finishing school and really geology was the favoured pathway for me because I really enjoyed the outdoors and I also enjoyed the science aspect of it.
So, learning more about rocks and the evolution of the earth was really attractive to me and I enjoyed university and met a lot of good friends as well. The field trips were always the highlight, being out and about in different locations in Western Australia and you start to realize how varied the profession of geology actually is. It's not just being in a mine, extracting a mineral, it's sort of, it's also the pursuit of discoveries and exploration plus also at an extreme is planetary geology or environmental geology. So, I would recommend anybody thinking about it to take that profession pathway.
00:06:14:06 - 00:06:20:11
*Liam
You graduated in 1991 with an undergraduate qualification. What came next? What was your first job?
00:06:21:07 - 00:07:22:13
*Callum
Yeah, fortunately in Western Australia it's quite a vibrant mining industry and as a student at a local university you quite often get invited to do vacation work with companies. So, I was actually working in the industry from when I was a second-year student, primarily as a field assistant alongside geologists and it was exploration as well.
So, a lot of soil sampling work and ground geophysical work and just general camp maintenance, four-wheel drive maintenance, lots of flat tyres and it's just a thorough adventure, which is fantastic.
So yeah, after I graduated university, I moved into exploration in the Goldfields in Western Australia and in 1993 was fortunate to be part of a large gold discovery in the north of Western Australia, which is still being mined today.
00:07:22:13 - 00:07:46:08
*Liam
Wow. I mean, what must that be like being an exploration geologist where you'll get these cores are coming up or the samples coming up after an RC drill and you're finding what you're expecting. I'm guessing the crew on the ground are getting excited at this point.
00:07:46:08 - 00:08:32:21
*Callum
Oh, very much so. And it's really quite unique and quite fortunate for me to have been involved in discoveries that were so large from an early stage, because it really gets you in a mindset of what a big deposit actually looks like when you're exploring for them. Now, there's a lot of small deposits around the planet which have been mined stop, start.
But when you find the real big ones, they've got the unique fingerprints about them that if you haven't actually seen it in the flesh, it's quite hard to understand. So, to be part of big discoveries from day one, essentially for myself was really quite enlightening and it sort of set the stage for everything that came from the next 30 years for me.
00:08:32:21 - 00:08:53:00
*Liam
In 2006, you did your master's and at the time your name after some research late one night appears in a couple of tenements known as the e38, 1685, 6 and … today we know that area is Ernest Giles, what drew you back then in 2004?
00:08:56:06 - 00:11:07:14
*Callum
Jeez, really there's nowhere to hide these days you've done some homework in the.. well, being the eternal exploration geologist that I am, I’m always trawling data sets for things that have been overlooked in exploration. So, there's a lot of publicly available data from historical work going back to the 1950s, particularly in Australia.
So, I was looking through some aeromagnetic data which was quite remote in Western Australia and I recognised this large magnetic high which was way in the northern margin of the Yukon Craton and being a bit technical here the Yukon cratons the lump of rock that holds most of the gold deposits in Western Australia, such as Kalgoorlie and Leonora or Leinster etc.
There's quite a lot. It covers a huge area and a lot of the north eastern portions of it in towards central Western Australia are covered by more recent sediments. And so, it really was thinking about undercover exploration back then in the early 2000s and saw this incredible aeromagnetic anomaly which was sort of a hook like feature which stretched for over 100 kilometres.
And I thought, wow, if that's a greenstone belt, it's never actually been recognized in any formal documentation and it could potentially host another multi-million ounce gold deposit, which, you know, all the other greenstone belts in Western Australia hold a gold deposit of some degree, some very large such as Kalgoorlie, which is just a super deposit, and no one's ever done any exploration over any of this area and magnetics before to any major degree. So yeah, set about acquiring the tenements which covered the area and that project still in Greatland’s folder or portfolio today.
00:11:07:14 - 00:11:48:19
*Liam
I mean how do you… once you've sort of secured the tenement, it's so… such a vast area of land. How did you start to whittle down as to where you wanted to start poking around? Is there a process that you'd go through to sort of start narrowing down your search? Because from an outsider's point of view, I've only got what I've really experienced on TV on the Outback Gold Hunters, and I can't imagine just sort of trawling around, pushing a… digging a small hole and using a metal detector is kind of the way to do it when you're looking for something that's as big as that.
00:11:48:19 - 00:14:06:00
*Callum
Yeah. Well, again, every large exploration opportunity requires a different approach as to how you attack it. So, there isn't sort of a ten steps that you take, but with any good exploration project, it's always based on good research and data compilation. So, there's a lot of time spent getting every piece of data that's already been collected and then working out what you need to do to try and hone in on targets from there.
And in the case of Ernest Giles, the first thing that we weren't quite sure of was how deep is the cover sequence? So, the younger rocks that sit on top, not quite sure how far down it is to the Archean basement. So, you really need to work that out in order… and also because we were covering such a large area, it was roughly 100 kilometres north south.
The depth of cover can potentially vary quite a lot over those 100 kilometres. And so, we were looking carefully at the area magnetics and looking for traditional structural type targets, which you can see in the aeromagnetic response.
And then we also decided to use what was called at the time deep sensing geochemistry or mobile metal ion geochemistry, which can help you sort of hone in on large areas, but small areas that were ready for drill targeting in the initial sense and very much of the initial drill program there, which I think was back in 2010, was a wildcat program effectively based on aeromagnetic and som… a little bit of geochemistry looking at some structural targets.
And we're fortunate enough to get some elevated levels of gold returned from that drilling and also some significant sulphide intercepts as well. So, an exploration success. But the thing and another important thing we got out of that program is we got hard depth debasement and what the cover sequence look like, which then feeds back into your next exploration program of what geophysics can we deploy, what kind of drilling can we deploy, etc.
00:14:09:23 - 00:14:34:06
*Liam
With the… I'm going to go back half a step here. The process of that geochemistry, yeah. How… what kind of a process is that? Is it just a case of taking some samples and adding some chemicals to them that then sort of show you what that's made up of? Or is it a little bit more in depth or what's kind of… what kind of a process is that process?
00:14:34:06 - 00:16:17:16
*Callum
Yeah, it's well, it's quite an involved process. There are people, geologists who spend the profession specialising in geochemistry. So, it's is quite a science in itself. But effectively what we're doing is taking a sample of dirt from the surface and picking a particular sieve fraction.
So, whether it's a coarse, a plus two millimetres or less than two millimetres or really quite fine, very small particles, and then either applying chemicals to that to extract certain elements or using an x ray XRF machines, X-ray diffraction to determine the relative amounts of different metals or pathfinder elements in those samples, generally, you take samples, a spacing of about 100 or 200 meters, if you can, and then just a simple grid pattern and looking at the relative responses from each of those samples and it allows you to hone in on particular areas. But in the case of Ernest Giles, you're looking for…all big deposits, they have a big footprint.
And when I say big footprint, there's alteration systems around the outside of these deposits which can extend for several kilometres. So, in the geochemistry, you can quite often see the alteration systems as well, not just the elevated metals such as gold or copper. And because there is a bit of an art involved in the science, but it's quite a powerful tool.
00:16:19:00 - 00:16:54:05
*Liam
I think you mentioned when you were speaking with Noel with a Coffee with Samso YouTube channel that as time has gone on that's actually something you and the team of people that you've been working over have time refined, that actually helps you identify these deep, deep undercover sequences.
Is that something that just evolved or is that something that sort of professionally, as you've moved through your years as a geologist, it's something that you wanted to sort of pursue.
00:16:54:05 - 00:18:55:04
*Callum
Yeah, well, the process of finding deposits, if you work in the Goldfields for example in Western Australia 20 or 30 years ago there was pretty much prescription of do A then B then C and that worked to a large extent. And then you get to a point of diminishing returns where deposits get found by doing A, B and C and so and also… all those deposits were either poking out of the ground or they weren’t very far down, let's say five or ten meters.
And then if you want to find more deposits, then you have to start tapping into different workflows and techniques.
And let's take mobile metal ions, for example, something that have been around since the 90’s, but no one really deployed it in any with any enthusiasm. However, when I was using it in the 90’s and in the 2000s you could… I convinced myself that you could actually see these footprints.
It's quite a blunt tool and it's sort of a blurry lens. But nonetheless, when you're honing in on from, say, a thousand square kilometres, you want to get down to, let's say one square kilometre, then it's quite a powerful tool.
And so,when we were pushing into the Paterson with great lens and looking at the cover depth, so it's something that we had to use as another part of the tool kit along with the geophysics in determining where we were going to drill holes.
And also, it helps you rank the targets as well. They always have maybe five or six targets and you know, which one do we want to drill first? Which is our highest priority? And it's just another tool that allows you to prioritise the drill sequence.
00:18:56:23 - 00:19:09:10
*Liam
And these say five or six targets. Sorry, just a question that's popped into my mind. Do you get to name the targets or these targets named for you?
00:19:09:10 - 00:19:47:08
*Callum
Yeah. Being a sailor, I'm a bit superstitious. And if an area or target's already got a name for some reason, then you don't change the name of the boat so Havieron for example was pre named by Newcrest and they may have had a slightly different pronunciation for it, but nonetheless the name stuck.
But if it's a completely virgin target then I'll throw a new name on it, but generally try and keep a local theme like maybe name it after a nearby hill or you know a nearby lake or whatever, just some kind of topographic feature.
00:19:48:06 - 00:20:04:06
*Liam
But that never happened with Scallywag, did it? I've just put two and two together now, because you've gone for a Pirates of the Caribbean theme with all those names, is that where that has all come from?
00:20:04:06 - 00:20:40:19
*Callum
Well, again, Scallywag itself was already named. It already had a name and so we didn't change the name of Scallywag itself. And really that name was just for the broad curved feature or folded sequence. So, you can see in the aero magnetics that’s off to the west of the Havieron and then yeah the, the team at Greatland picked up on the nautical theme and then the pirates started flowing which was great to see.
00:20:40:19 - 00:20:51:18
*Liam
And I still can't pronounce the one of old squid features, which is just off to the northwest of Havieron itself… Architheuthis? How would you pronounce the two.
00:20:52:01 - 00:20:56:22
*Callum
Architheuthis , which is basically a giant squid?
00:20:56:22 - 0:21:26:03
*Liam
Yeah, that one when you look at on Google, it's one of the characters, it's all ugly and giant squid like. Anyway, back to the.. to my questions. Between 2006 and 2016, you grew Greatland Gold with projects of Warrentina, Firetower, Bromus and Ernest Giles but you were still looking for that project that would satisfy your goal.
What made you start snooping around the Paterson and how did you conclude the E454701 was the tenement that you wanted?
00:21:26:03 - 00:23:13:00
*Callum
Yeah, I suppose I've told this or I've answered this question a few times, but I never tire of it. But with Greatland’s and me and exploration geologists, we’re always looking for new opportunities. And we had some success for Firetower and Ernest Giles and then former CEO Gervaise Heddle joined the company in 2016 and Gervaise was also very keen to look at new opportunities.
And so, opportunities were coming across our desk, you know, several a week and quite often most of them end up in the bin for whatever reason. But Gerviase contacted one of his colleagues in Melbourne and just asked the question you got any good projects and back came this one called Havieron and it was in the name of a private company called Pacific Trends based in Melbourne at the time.
And I still vividly remember the conference call where Sam Garrett, the geologist working with Pacific Trends was showing us the Geophysical target and also the Scallywag area and I saw the scale of the Havieron target and thought, well, that looks fairly interesting at face value, but we'll have to take it off line and have a bit more of a look at it.
So yeah, it was really quite interesting at face value from a geophysical point of view and really that's where it all started, our involvement in the Paterson.
00:23:15:05 - 00:23:40:00
*Liam
And there's so many parts to this from… and I've been told that the you and you guys had a… it is some kind of a legend for older shareholders. I don't know it was a little bit before my time, Has Greatland still got the Jute (Jeep) or is that been moved to its own retirement plan now.
00:23:40:00 - 00:23:45:15
*Callum
No, I'm pretty sure the company still has the Jute, fantastic.
00:23:46:06 - 00:24:33:09
*Liam
It's… I don't know why, but for some of the older shareholders, it's very important to them. So, I hope they keep that on. And so, you'll…you've decided that you're obviously going to do that to deal with Pacific Trends. And you've set that up and you've got Havieron, which at the time is the entire area, not just the 12 blocks, but also the blocks of the Scallywag area as well.
And obviously, Havieron is the big, big magnetic anomaly compared to the rest of it. Was that your instant go to or actually did you have to spend some time looking at the other targets to deduce which one you wanted to look at first?
00:24:33:09 - 00:26:12:10
*Callum
We were looking at a few other targets, not just Havieron. And not long after we acquired E4701, we met a local prospector who held the adjoining Black Hills license and so we effectively bought that as well because we liked that particular target also and also we were scanning for other targets as well.
And back then in 2016, 2017, ground was fairly open through that part of the Paterson, Rio Tinto hadn't made any major announcements but we knew at that stage and Telfer was pretty quiet. So, there was some areas where we were able to lodge exploration license applications as well, but that that all changed rapidly in 2018. But certainly, Havieron was one of our major focuses in terms of the targets.
But you really don't… when you move into a new area, you don't just want one target, you want several. So, we were sort of trying to bring in enough that could satisfy a good exploration effort for Greatland in the Paterson. But we didn't want to overcook as well. We didn't want to take on too much ground, we just couldn't service. So really it was quite a measured approach. But still we got a lot of good ground at the time.
00:26:12:10 - 00:26:27:23
*Liam
Yeah. What's it like trying to get out to somewhere like Havieron? It's about 45 kilometres away from Telfer. There's no easy direct route. Well, what I mean, how long did it take to get out there? The first time you went and visited the ground?
00:26:27:23 - 00:28:00:12
*Callum
Yeah. Well, being an exploration geologist where we've pushed into frontiers for many years, it for me, it's not that hard. Sorry to brag, but to actually get out on the ground, it does take a lot of forward planning and a lot of safety involved, a lot of communications, but a lot of research into looking at satellite imagery and aerial photography to work out where the vehicle accesses and where the potential pitfalls are.
So, we're used to long journeys and we're used to being out in a Jute with a fridge and a couple of swags and some shovels in case you get bogged. And the main trick for us of actually getting on site the first time was, was a lot of the historic exploration tracks through that part of Paterson were quite overgrown with very small shrubs about waist high.
And so, we spent a lot of time driving over those and getting a few flat tires along the way. But yeah, we're used to that kind of thing and we eventually made it on site and I think there was a photograph taken by Ben who was a geologist working for Greatland for many years and my cell phone… where he's taken a photo of me walking on the top of a sand dune, looking down on the drill site before we drill any holes. And so it's pretty much just virgin territory at that stage.
00:28:03:00 - 00:28:15:13
*Liam
Because the few pictures that that seem to come about, it's a really beautiful part of the country, isn't it, with all the dunes and shrubbery. And I mean, you've seen it, so I'll let you talk about it.
00:28:16:18 - 00:29:02:03
*Callum
Yeah. Well, all the outback's beautiful from the forests to the deserts and the oceans, now being an exploration geologist yeah… You are really fortunate to be able to travel to some very remote locations that not many people get to see. And yeah, so it's quite special. But the desert has its own attraction. I do enjoy the desert, but yep, just a few safety things you've got to be aware of when you're going into those regions.
Obviously lack of water and distance to emergency first aid services. So, we take a lot of precautions and but thankfully we've always been safe and achieved what we've wanted to achieve.
00:29:03:09 - 00:29:18:05
*Liam
I guess being an exploration… that the keys in that term exploration geologist that makes sense but only an exploration geologist would be one of the few people in the world that says, I quite enjoy being in the desert.
00:29:18:05 - 00:29:29:08
*Callum
Okay. For us it's very similar to someone tell you they enjoy standing on the top of Mount Everest. But probably not my favourite thing to do but obviously some people like it.
00:29:31:22 - 00:29:48:02
*Liam
And then what was it like when that… presumably an email dropped into your inbox, it just said 103m @ 3.5 grams per tonne and 128m @ 7.4 grams per tonne.
00:29:48:02 - 00:31:03:07
*Callum
Oh amazing. Yeah. Outstanding. Startling, but I have seen some pretty outstanding results in the past as well. And… but it certainly gets your heart started and then you realize things are going to get a lot more busy from there. And, you know, the laboratory are very good. They are you know, the information remains very confident. So, and there's telephone discussions in advance of emails being sent only about half an hour, an hour, just them explaining to you the quality control processes and why they've validated it or how they validated these results and why they're sending you the results.
And they have their full support behind the results because, of course, if the laboratories made an error of some sort, then there can be some… a lot of explaining to do. And so, we make sure that everything is full, all the I’s are dotted and t’s are crossed before receiving the formal email confirmation. But yeah, it's very exciting that from the first hole to get a result like that is an outstanding achievement.
00:31:03:07 - 00:31:17:15
*Liam
Because if I'm if I'm right in saying you've now got part of HAD05, which is where those results have come from and that shows as your own keepsake, is that right?
00:31:17:15 - 00:31:28:15
*Callum
I do have a small piece of drill core from HAD05 here. It was presented to me by the company when I left about a year ago.
00:31:28:15 - 00:32:06:02
*Liam
It's just awesome and I'm going to change that completely. Now, one of the shareholder legends that you may or may not know was a 3D image of what could only be described as sorry to say this C**k and balls, it's been termed famously as Callum’s C**k and balls. I'm sorry to bring this up. We've spent a long-time debating, theorising, postulating as to where this image was and actually looking at it yesterday it’s quite obvious now when I was bringing this together, but what was that image of and did you mean… did you leave that there on purpose? For us to look at it?
00:32:06:02 - 00:32:11:06
*Callum
Yeah. Well, firstly, I didn't coin the description. So, there’s disclaimer for me there.
00:32:11:11 - 00:32:16:06
*Liam
No, definitely not. Definitely not.
00:32:16:06 - 00:33:30:22
*Callum
That image was one of our early 3D representations of our initial 2.5D modelling of the gravity and magnetics, and our modelling put forward modelling process was effectively done in 2.5D, which is a series of two images built up in Plan View and then we reprocess it to push it into more of a 3D sense.
And it was really just to give people an idea of the scale of what we were looking at, even after a couple of early drill holes. And that's always been the message, really primary message behind all of Greatland’s communication is that the scale of the Havieron target and now deposit is rather large and you can see it in the even before we drilled a hole into it. And that's effectively what led us to become involved in Havieron in the first place. It's just the scale of the geophysical response and now the scale of the mineralisation.
00:33:30:22 - 00:33:39:05
*Liam
How long did it take to get under the cover with the drill? Do you know by any chance, just off of top of your head.
00:33:39:05 - 00:33:57:08
*Callum
The cover sequence is 400 meters and it depends on how you drill it. In the initial sense, when we were drilling with the first couple of holes, they were vertical and we punched those down in about 6 to 8 hours down to the top of basement….
00:33:57:12 - 00:33:57:19
*Liam
Okay.
00:33:58:02 - 00:34:26:06
*Callum
… with our RC technique but these days because a lot of the drilling is guided or navi drill the… and they're angled the pre collars through the cover sequence have to be very accurate and so a lot more time is taken to drill those so it does take longer to drill a pre collar these days than it did than we did in back in 2018.
00:34:26:06 - 00:34:48:21
*Liam
And that must be an art form in itself when, you know, you start looking at the.. as sort of a 3D plan of Havieron with 300-400 drill holes in it, actually threading the needle, as it were, exactly where they need to. Those drillers must be very clever at what they do.
00:34:48:21 - 00:35:52:17
*Callum
Yeah fantastic. It… one of the things that helped us out a lot it Havieron from the first drill program was that we had the benefit of more modern drill equipment which could accurately target depths we were looking at. 30 years ago a 600 metre hole was very hard to drill and successfully get it to depth, but we had much better equipment.
So, these days the equipment combined with the skill set of the drill is amazing. And hats off to the drillers. They are hitting a box within several square meters at, let's say, plus 600 meters depth, which is quite… a very… requires a very intricate skill set and they're very experienced. So, hats off to DDH1 and the other drill teams on site plus also Newcrest and the Greatland doing a fantastic job in hitting those targets at such great depths.
00:35:52:17 - 00:36:09:10
*Liam
Did you expect to go as deep as Greatland have gone? Did you have sort of an idea in mind as to how deep you need to go? Or is this sort of when you look at it, is it actually bigger than you ever imagined?
00:36:09:10 - 00:37:09:05
*Callum
Yeah. Oh, yeah. This strangely, I knew we had to go this deep from day one because that's what the geophysics was telling us. You get to a point where even if you drill, let's say two kilometres deep, you're probably not going to get there in a mining sense, even if you have a very large mine extracting a lot of material, probably not going to get there in many years.
So, you get to a stage where you think, well, it's not really worth us drilling a hole that deep because why don't we just drill it from underground once we've sort of mined out a little bit more and it doesn't take as long to drill the hole and yeah, we understand the deposit a bit better, but you can see in the geophysics that that this thing definitely has depth potential and all the drilling to date definitely proves that's the case.
00:37:09:05 - 00:37:34:10
*Liam
I'm still looking at that image on the, on your TV screen there on your back wall. I can see now, obviously, there's the main ore body and there's the high-grade zone with the Breccia running through it, the two smaller areas… is one of those the eastern Breccia was at that point was that not even part of the realization?
00:37:34:19 - 00:38:50:02
*Callum
Now the eastern breccia hasn't been specifically pulled out of that particular model that you're looking at? Primarily, we're just looking at the model you're looking at is just seeing the broad magnetic and gravity responses from the deposit and the reason why it's there, I think I haven't got the image in front of me, but I understand the magnetics are shown in red there.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sort of looks like a bit a rugby ball shape all end to end. And the reason why it appears to taper off at depth is because you lose resolution in the geophysical data because that geophysical data was collected from a 50 meter line spaced airborne survey, which the plane would have been flying anyway between 50 and 40 to 70 meters above the surface of the ground.
So, the sensor can only see so far down before the signal gets blocked by all the sediment sitting over the top of it. So, there's no reason to suggest that magnetic response doesn't continue at depth. It's just that from where we sense that magnetic data, the signal just diminished to almost nothing when we were looking so deep.
00:38:51:07 - 00:39:03:02
*Liam
Okay. And would you have explored those? Have we explored the two very small areas that sit off to each side of it, or do they actually… just have we? That's the question. Have we explored those two small areas?
00:39:04:04 - 00:39:28:13
*Callum
That… have holes been drilled into those areas? To be honest, I'm not sure. Before I left Greatland, I believe that none of them had been drilled. I know there's been some satellite holes drilled since I've left, but I think they're primarily to the north. So potentially those other areas haven't been drilled yet.
00:39:28:13 - 00:39:49:21
*Liam
Okay. And I'm going to go back to Ernest Giles, if I may. From what I can see, it has been a labour of love for you over many, many years. I can't help but feel that you've got some unfinished business with it, as you've been associated with it now since 2004. Do you think we could see you back on the ground down there next year once drilling starts.
00:39:54:01 - 00:40:59:03
*Callum
Back on the ground at Ernest Giles, well, that's no reason why not, but I would have to be obviously invited by the company if, if they wanted me to go out there. But you know that exploration isn't all about one person. It's always a team effort. There's.. that people have forward modelling geophysics, but, you know, in collaboration with other people's input, other people are doing forward planning for drill programs and site preparation, etc..
So, it's always a team effort. It's not never just one person, but you know, if, if the and Greatland has got a very good exploration team in house, all those people were effectively handpicked a lot by myself and they're very competent and they definitely know their stuff. So, I think Greatland is pretty much… can handle itself going forward. But, you know, I'm always on the end of the telephone if they want to have a chat about anything to do with Ernest Giles.
00:40:59:03 - 00:41:14:09
*Liam
I was going to ask you what your, what you do now that you've say taken a back step from the office. But as we have already established, your time is spent largely yachting. What kind of a boat do you have? Let's go. Let's go there. What? What kind of a boat you have.
00:41:18:00 - 00:41:56:18
*Callum
At the moment? I've just got a motorboat, but which is about six meters long. And I've been desperately trying to find a yacht to replace my old one, which I got rid of a few years ago. But the market's been so tight, particularly during the pandemic, that I've really struggled to actually find one.
So, I'm still searching and I hope to be in the Mediterranean in a couple of months again looking at some boats. So hopefully it's not too far away and probably something in the 50-foot range.
00:41:58:08 - 00:42:12:18
*Liam
Lovely. And I've just got some quickfire questions now, if I may, just to sort of wrap this this amazing conversation up with you. And if you've got a favourite Scallywag target.
00:42:12:18 - 00:42:20:20
*Callum
They're all my favourite targets. Okay. I never have a favourite child. They're all wonderful.
00:42:20:20 - 00:42:25:06
*Liam
And in the office, looking at data or out in the field handling cores.
00:42:27:21 - 00:42:39:23
*Callum
Ah both, yeah it's exciting when you come across an opportunity looking at a computer screen but then being out in the field to get the target tested is great as well.
00:42:39:23 - 00:42:45:10
*Liam
If you could tell just qualified Callum anything, what words of wisdom would you pass on to him now?
00:42:53:07 - 00:43:07:01
*Callum
Stick to your knitting comes to mind. Yeah. And if you enjoy something, then the old saying is you'll never work a day in your life. So, find a profession you enjoy.
00:43:07:01 - 00:43:14:13
*Liam
And a bit more of a personal question. What's your favourite thing to cook on a barbecue?
00:43:14:13 - 00:43:15:21
*Callum
Oh, that would have to be a good steak.
00:43:16:08 - 00:43:30:11
*Liam
Fair play. And the question that's on everybody's end their lips, they'd be dying to ask, how big do you think Havieron’s going to be?
00:43:30:11 - 00:43:42:15
*Callum
It's very large. I think it's a… it certainly is looking like it's going to be plus 10 million ounces gold equivalent and it and… sky's the limit from there.
00:43:44:08 - 00:43:55:19
*Liam
Finally, as the biggest single shareholder of Greatland Gold, do you have any final comments about anything that you'd like to share with the fellow shareholders?
00:43:55:19 - 00:44:35:18
*Callum
I'm really pleased that a lot of shareholders have come on the journey with Greatland and myself and now shout out to the previous CEO, Gervaise Heddle who did a fantastic job, and also existing chairman Alex Borelli and non-exec Clive Latcham and the new team that's in place at Greatland working very hard and, you know, pleased that we've had a lot of support over the years. And we'll never forget the shareholders.
00:44:36:00 - 00:44:54:02
*Liam
Callum, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come and let me ask questions of you. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this, and I really hope that sometime in the future we can sit down and talk again, because I could listen to your stories and what you've got to say for hours. So, thank you so much for coming on to the show today.
00:44:58:19 - 00:45:06:04
*Callum
Thanks for the opportunity, Liam. It's been great to have a chat and I look forward to catching up again in the future.
00:45:06:04 - 00:45:14:11
*Liam
And with that, thank you very much for joining us today on GGPHelp TV, my names Liam and I'll see you soon. Thank you and goodbye.
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