X-ray technologyHey Damian,
maybe your friend was talking about this. Stargazer1 posted this at another forum. I don't know how much truth there is in this, I am not an expert in mining recon technology.
Please remember I am quoting another post and this does not necessarily reflect my opinion,.
It can take quite awhile to get the results from drill samples that have been sent to a lab for analysis. But there is a way to get immediate on the spot analysis of a core sample prior to sending it off to a lab for official analysis results. And, by analyzing the core samples as soon as they are obtained, Company X could get a good idea of what each area drilled contained and they could fine tune where they wanted to drill the next site. Also, if they started getting back excellent results, then the word might leak out and the price of the stock might start climbing even before we started getting back the results from the lab. In order to get immediate analysis of the core samples you can use a hand held devise that bombards a sample with high energy photons emitted from x-rays or gamma rays. As a metal absorbs the high energy photon it dislodges an electron from one of the atom's inner orbital shells (lower quantum energy states). The atom regains stability by having an electron from one of the atom's higher quantum energy orbital shells drop down in its place. In order to drop down to this lower energy orbit, the electron releases the excess energy in the form of an x-ray. By definition, this is called fluorescence. Each type of metal gives off different energy fluorescent x-rays which are specific to that metal. By measuring the different characteristic fluorescent x-rays emitted by the different elements in the sample, a hand-held fluorescent x-ray analyzer can rapidly determine the elements present in the sample and their relative concentrations. NITON hand analyzers are able to quickly, non-destructively determine the elemental composition of metal samples. Up to 30 or more elements may be quantified simultaneously.
X-ray fluorescence technology provides one of the simplest, most accurate and most economic analytical methods for the determination of the chemical composition of many types of ore samples. It is non-destructive and reliable, and is suitable for solid or powdered samples. If you use it to analyze a core sample it will tell you the elements present on its surface, but not the composition inside it. For a more accurate determination of the core sample, which can give you an accuaracy equal to 95% to 100% of the reading that you will get from the laboratory, a thin section, weighing as little as 1/3 of an ounce, can be removed form the core and crushed into a fine powder which can then be mixed together to give a homogeneous sample whose reading will represent the overall amount of metals present in that section of the core. A number of sections along the core could be tested, but the fastest way to test the core sample, and one that is around 80% to 90% accurate, is to just run the analyzer along the length of the core. These readings can be stored and read back and they will tell you the percent of the different metals present on the surface along the length of the core. These readings would give you a good idea of what the labs analysis will give you. A hand held analyzer can be used for a wide range of elements, from beryllium (4) to uranium (92), and provides detection limits at the ppm level; it can also precisely measure concentrations of up to 100%.
X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) is universally recognized as a very accurate method of measuring the atomic composition of a material.