Before the First Hole: Seven Questions a Target Should Survive

A new drill-target announcement is often read as a set of planned holes. A more useful review starts one step earlier: what must each target be able to explain before it consumes drilling budget?

1. Name the geological hypothesis

State what the proposed hole is intended to test: a projected structure, lithological contact, alteration corridor, geochemical response or geophysical response. Use one falsifiable sentence.

2. Count independent evidence

Separate geology and structure, geochemistry, geophysics, remote sensing, historic drilling and direct field observations. Several derivatives from the same dataset are not several independent confirmations.

3. Check scale and alignment

Review coordinate reference systems, source scale, acquisition date, positional uncertainty and the distance from evidence to the proposed collar. A regional pattern can guide attention without locating a drill-ready target.

4. Preserve an alternative explanation

Test whether regolith, transported cover, cultural features, topography, acquisition artefacts, unrelated lithology or incomplete historic records could create the same signal.

5. Define upgrade and downgrade conditions

Set both conditions before new evidence arrives. Mapped continuity or repeatable geochemistry may upgrade a target. An absent host, misaligned datasets or a credible false-positive explanation may downgrade it.

6. Design the field handoff

Specify the coordinates, contacts, structures, alteration observations, photographs, source references and uncertainty notes that must return from the field. The field program should update the target register, not merely add files to a folder.

Public sources reviewed

• Mt Malcolm Mines public announcement context