What is the difference between quartz exploration and placer exploration?
The most distinctive difference is what type of drill is used. A placer operation uses an auger mounted on a Nodwell to dig into the sand and gravel and a short distance into bedrock. The depth is typically under 20 meters (66 feet). Analysis of auger drilling materials can be supplemented by bulk sampling to test for resource consistency. For quartz exploration a broad suite of methodologies is employed including soil geo-chemistry, trenching, chip and rock sampling, ground and/or airborne geo-physical surveys, and diamond or other drilling technologies depending on the site, regional and structural analysis. For diamond drilling, a core is removed and what is recovered is a solid sample of the rock. It requires the sample to be sent out for analysis by an independent certified laboratory. This drilling typically penetrates hundreds of meters into the bedrock.
