Why RC Drilling?https://ceo.ca/@newton/note-on-rc-drilling-aan-exploration-manager
Please enjoy this note from Javier Ordua, Exploration Manager at Aton Resources (TSXV:AAN). Javi starts, "I am not going to get into a full discourse on the merits of the RC/DD discussion, but..." Read on for important information about Aton's ongoing exploration program at Rodruin.
Photograph of rock chip samples collected from Hole ROP-003, which had the exciting high-grade gold numbers. Note how the 24-25m box is empty as drilling intersected an old working there.
I am not going to get into a full discourse on the merits of the RC/DD discussion, but would just say that RC is a perfectly valid drilling technique, particularly when you have big air attached, which we do. I understand that it’s not a commonly used technique in Canada, but in Australia, where I started out, and in many other parts of the world, in the right conditions, it is a perfectly acceptable drilling method and quite commonplace. It also works out at about a quarter to a third of the cost of diamond per metre, so to all those who wonder where the money goes, and worry about stock dilution you get 3-4 times as many metres by using RC relative to DD. Junior exploration companies burn money, that’s what we do, I‘m afraid. We want to use our funding as efficiently as possible. We do not have issues with ground water, so we are getting dry samples (chips are wet purely for photographic purposes here), so no contamination problems. Also remember we are drilling bigger holes – some 140mm diameter, so we are getting bigger samples, so a major consideration when you are in a coarse gold scenario, as we certainly appear to Aladdin’s Hill. Each metre bulk sample weighs 30-35kg+, compared to say 8-9kg for a metre of HQ core. You can see the green bulk sample bags for each metre in Figure 1 in the news release from Monday.
I would also point out that diamond drilling at Rodruin would have been a disaster to date, given the amount of old workings we have encountered, which would result in massive water loss. We are drilling in the desert, at least 50 miles from the nearest water source, and 5km up the top of a mountain, so the amount of water loss would be a logistical as well as a drilling nightmare. DD also has recovery issues in the sort of ground that we are drilling at Rodruin, with loss of the softer weathered and gossanous material, particularly when it this type of material is intercalated with harder and more massive carbonate lithologies. This softer gossanous material is likely to preferentially carry the gold, so poor recovery in DD may actually be underscoring the potential grade. RC is the way to go, at least initially, on this project. Be aware, that we would obviously look to go back and twin selected RC holes with diamond holes later as the project advances.
You can also get perfectly good lithological info from RC logging if you know what you are doing. From each hole we take a representative sample of the chips and store them in chip trays from each meter and keep them for our data recording purposes – the attached is a composited photo of the chips from ROP-003. This will be done for every hole, and acts as a quick visual record of the hole, in much the same way as core photography. Just eyeballing this hole you can clearly see the main rock types – altered slates to 5m, highly altered and weathered rock, presumed meta-sediments to 56m, and then into fresher sediments from there. Reported mineralisation in this hole between 5-54m, and Zn zone between 56-59m, it’s pretty easy to see in the attached. These zones stand out like the dogs proverbials when you look at the chips. Also no sample was retained between 24-25m due to the hole intersecting an old stope. There was enough sample to send for assay, but not retained in the bulk bags on site for logging. We also identified VG in the chips between 9-10m and 22-23m in the trays in this photo, corresponding to the 221 and 94 g/t Au assays. Those numbers are real, as evidenced by the fact that we could see VG in those photographed intervals.
I hope that this photo will give you an idea of the effectiveness of RC drilling for those who are not especially familiar with the technique, and I would be happy to discuss further, if people would like to know more.
PS. Excerpt from CEO Mark Campbell:
P.S.We will diamond drill for structure at some point as it is necessary. But one thing is that with all these voids from the ancient workings, the water costs, which we would incur about pumping up 4.5KM first of all and the loss of water during drilling will be huge. I would rather use RC to determine where are the best places to spend that extra money, before I just go WAHOO and drill them."
Please enjoy this note from Javier Ordua, Exploration Manager at Aton Resources (TSXV:AAN). Javi starts, "I am not going to get into a full discourse on the merits of the RC/DD discussion, but..." Read on for important information about Aton's ongoing exploration program at Rodruin.
Photograph of rock chip samples collected from Hole ROP-003, which had the exciting high-grade gold numbers. Note how the 24-25m box is empty as drilling intersected an old working there.
I am not going to get into a full discourse on the merits of the RC/DD discussion, but would just say that RC is a perfectly valid drilling technique, particularly when you have big air attached, which we do. I understand that it’s not a commonly used technique in Canada, but in Australia, where I started out, and in many other parts of the world, in the right conditions, it is a perfectly acceptable drilling method and quite commonplace. It also works out at about a quarter to a third of the cost of diamond per metre, so to all those who wonder where the money goes, and worry about stock dilution you get 3-4 times as many metres by using RC relative to DD. Junior exploration companies burn money, that’s what we do, I‘m afraid. We want to use our funding as efficiently as possible. We do not have issues with ground water, so we are getting dry samples (chips are wet purely for photographic purposes here), so no contamination problems. Also remember we are drilling bigger holes – some 140mm diameter, so we are getting bigger samples, so a major consideration when you are in a coarse gold scenario, as we certainly appear to Aladdin’s Hill. Each metre bulk sample weighs 30-35kg+, compared to say 8-9kg for a metre of HQ core. You can see the green bulk sample bags for each metre in Figure 1 in the news release from Monday.
I would also point out that diamond drilling at Rodruin would have been a disaster to date, given the amount of old workings we have encountered, which would result in massive water loss. We are drilling in the desert, at least 50 miles from the nearest water source, and 5km up the top of a mountain, so the amount of water loss would be a logistical as well as a drilling nightmare. DD also has recovery issues in the sort of ground that we are drilling at Rodruin, with loss of the softer weathered and gossanous material, particularly when it this type of material is intercalated with harder and more massive carbonate lithologies. This softer gossanous material is likely to preferentially carry the gold, so poor recovery in DD may actually be underscoring the potential grade. RC is the way to go, at least initially, on this project. Be aware, that we would obviously look to go back and twin selected RC holes with diamond holes later as the project advances.
You can also get perfectly good lithological info from RC logging if you know what you are doing. From each hole we take a representative sample of the chips and store them in chip trays from each meter and keep them for our data recording purposes – the attached is a composited photo of the chips from ROP-003. This will be done for every hole, and acts as a quick visual record of the hole, in much the same way as core photography. Just eyeballing this hole you can clearly see the main rock types – altered slates to 5m, highly altered and weathered rock, presumed meta-sediments to 56m, and then into fresher sediments from there. Reported mineralisation in this hole between 5-54m, and Zn zone between 56-59m, it’s pretty easy to see in the attached. These zones stand out like the dogs proverbials when you look at the chips. Also no sample was retained between 24-25m due to the hole intersecting an old stope. There was enough sample to send for assay, but not retained in the bulk bags on site for logging. We also identified VG in the chips between 9-10m and 22-23m in the trays in this photo, corresponding to the 221 and 94 g/t Au assays. Those numbers are real, as evidenced by the fact that we could see VG in those photographed intervals.
I hope that this photo will give you an idea of the effectiveness of RC drilling for those who are not especially familiar with the technique, and I would be happy to discuss further, if people would like to know more.