Sample and crush or not

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A rotary hammer drill is the go ben, battery powered is the safest choice, generators are bad news around any underground or even shallow workings. Remember to take a dust mask and safty glasses as well as a hard hat and check the walls, roof and floor for loose rock and bar it down before you start drilling as the vibrations may cause a fall.
 
ben2363 said:
hey guys been awhile i plan to go look at the mine this saturday and get a few samples.

how do you guys sample?
just a hammer or pick and hit the rocks out or use a drill bit and that way the rock has turned into powder so no need to crush?

sample each reef and along it at different points junctions and smaller reefs that join onto the main one. you may also need several small bags numbed 1 to say 20 for each sample when you get home crush in the dolly pot separately and wash out the dolly pot toughly after each sample if you have a rock crusher or hammer mill the crushing is a lot easier and quicker.

weight each sample on scales and after crushing pan off the sand carefully note how many specs or grams are in your pan. normally if I find a lot of fine gold or chunky bits its worth doing more work if im finding 1 or 2 specks in the pan in every sample collected I don't bother going back and doing anymore work/sampling the old miners would have done the same if its not payable its not worth mining. oh and you may want to nail a tag with the same number as the sample into the wall for each sample so you know where it came from.

to sample a simple small pick and hammer and decent old chisel is what I use and one last thing if the rock sounds like a drum when you hit it lightly especially the roof don't touch it as it has unseen cracks behind where your hitting if it sounds like your hitting steel on steel high tone ring to it its safe and can only be taken down by an explosive/blast
 
jethro said:
A rotary hammer drill is the go ben, battery powered is the safest choice, generators are bad news around any underground or even shallow workings. Remember to take a dust mask and safty glasses as well as a hard hat and check the walls, roof and floor for loose rock and bar it down before you start drilling as the vibrations may cause a fall.

that's a great idea however im not sure if your aloud to use a battery hammer drill under the miners right as it states nothing motorised can be used however it doesn't specify what motorized tools you can't use but if your only getting samples I should imagine its not that bad its not like your going to use it to actually mine with it.
 
Question guys there are 3 main faults in the mine all have been stoped out to one big opening about 15 metres wide.
im assuming they have stoped it all out as everone was saying the gold is mostly in the foot walls of the mine, being 3 reef running in the same line did they crush only the quartz or did they crush the slate and shale to? (is there gold in the shale and slate)
 
By Faults do you mean faults that have shifted or cut off the reef in its coarse either horizontally (flat fault ) or cross faults, where the 2 halves of the reef have shifted laterally relevent to each other.
Slate and shale beside the reef may well be carrying gold especially if the fliuds that carried the gold have penertrated the wall rock and altered it or deposited a lattice of fine quartz stringers or pyrites.
 
faults are good and bad in mining good because these areas are often enriched in gold near them and bad because when mining in them they require lots of support to stop the hanging wall and backs/roof coming down.
 

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