Using Drones for Prospecting at KarrathaNot sure if the company has been using drones for their properties in WA, but these things would save a lot of walking (they could provide a bird-eye's perpective, or a close-up, of the area of interest, like the one they plan to drill at Purdy's Reward).
They could be equiped with cameras, and/or metal detector to fly very close to the surface to detect and record the location of the "hits" (they could be equiped withGPS unit). The data would be stored on computer and would be available for future use.
The scenary alone, instead of description with words, would be worth the effort. An example of the use is shown in a link below. One company in Canada has used this technology to provide a record of inspection using a drone for their trenches (with pin-point accuracy, using GPS, of the gold traces found along the (shallow) trench walls in the Cheechoo/Quebec area.
They could perhaps, record the strength of the signals from the metal detector strapped underneath the drone to the amount of gold recovered from the bulk samples. They could certainly send the drone down to inspect the trench with the video cam and detect the presence of gold with the metal detector at the deep end of the trench (could be more than 100m at the other end (Comet Well). This is much better than climbing down to the bottom of this trench.
https://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/3070-uav-drones-for-gold-prospecting/
If there is a chance, could one of the people here ask QH at an upcoming meeting this question?
GH