Diamond Drilling - Some Problems Involved in the Interpretation of Diamond-drill-hole Sampling and Surveying (T. P. 1842, Mining Tech., Jan. 1946) (With discussion)

Page Purpose and scope..................... 521 Core sampling......................... 521 Sludge sampling....................... 527 Combining core and sludge assays ...... 533 Deviation and surveying of drill holes. . . . 537 Conclusions........................... 544 Acknowledgments...................... 545 Bibliography.......................... 545 Purpose and Scope The purpose of this paper is to review a few of the problems involved in the interpretation of diamond-drill core and sludge samples, with the hope that it will stimulate discussion and bring forth some of the information on the subject that has been accumulated by various organizations. The release of these data would benefit the mining industry as a whole. Particularly valuable would be the details of drilling programs that have been tested by actual mining operations, as most of the available published material is unsupported by production records. The scope of this paper is limited to a few of the commonest problems of interpreting diamond-drill core and sludge samples and the deviation of holes. It does not include the description of routine operations performed by the drillers, nor the estimation of ore reserves. The methods of calculating reserves have been described,25,26,31,32,50,65 but more informa- tion is needed on the results shown by actual mining operations. Core Sampling The accuracy of diamond-drill-hole Sampling depends in large measure on the percentage of core recovery. As a general rule, the longer the run, the poorer is the recovery. Although the longer runs allow cheaper drilling costs, the determining factor should be the percentage of recovery desired. The problem is one of balancing accuracy against costs. Holes of larger diameter may show improved recovery, except as Joralemon* points out that there are some conditions in which small holes give better core recovery than large holes. This is particularly true, he says; in rocks like shattered quartzite, where larger core tends to break in angular fragments and grind up, while the diameter of smaller core is less than the distance between joint planes and grinding is not so serious. In a large measure the length of the sample run should depend on the type of deposit. Favorable drilling may allow uniform sample runs of 5 ft., 10 ft., or perhaps 20 ft. In veins or beds of relatively narrow widths and changing characteristics, however, the ore zone may be overrun and ground in a core barrel full of waste rock. Generally it is desirable to break the sample at a change in the rock or ore. Such a change; often indicated by a color change in the sludge water, should be a a for the driller to make a "dry" block and to pull out that run regardless of the length. Such a procedure permits the segregation of waste from ore samples so