While usually significant sums of money are invested in drilling and chemical analysis of the core material, the essential knowledge of the relation between assay values and mineralogical variations remains underexposed
Conventional core logging based on visual description is indispensible for lithological characterisation. However, it is also time consuming, and leaves many important mineralogical questions, critical to the understanding of a hydrothermal system, unanswered.
Core logging using a portable infrared spectrometer is a fast, accurate and non-destructive way to map important mineralogical parameters that provide detailed information about the variation of alteration mineralogy along the core.
Knowledge of the alteration mineralogy and its properties, such as chemical composition and crystallinity is indisensible in order to understand the thermal and chemical evolution of a mineral deposit and to interpret the zoning of the hydrothermal system with respect to where the grades occur and where not.
Rapid analysis of coarse regjects with the Spectral EvolutionPSR-3500
Diamond Core logging with the Spetral Evolution PSR-3500. Due to the high speed of the instrument, we can easily perform 1000 measurements in a day. At an interval of 25cm, this means about 400m of core per day
Plotting the spectral parameters in a vertical section together with the lithology and the geochemistry gives an excellent picture of the relation between mineralisation, alteration and macroscopic parameters such as rocktype and presence of faults.