Is visual inspection be a good indicator of mineralisation if done by a competent geologist? I'm sure they would know exactly what they're looking for?
- You would hope so. In big companies it is normally done by junior geos... but they should be supervised. If this is a mineralised hole from an exploration company everyone probably had a look.
If a hole is drilled at an angle, and the results state a depth at which mineralization is encountered, is that the vertical distance from the surface of where mineralization was encountered? Or is it the distance from the drill 'collar'? Am I using the term correctly?
- From the drill collar. There is probably information on the dip/angle of the hole in the announcement (amongst the 1000's of questions at the end). From that you can work out vertical distance. Maybe it is a vertical hole though. Yes you are using the terms correctly in fact so far you have been correct on every question here so I am wondering if you aren't a closet geo trying to troll us all.
Is diamond drilling always better than RC drilling? In other words, are there conditions under which RC drilling can umm, get all information needed to define a resource etc. without diamond drilling? Example for a target that isn't very deep.
- Depends what you mean by better. It is more expensive and generally yields better quality samples, it also provides more geological information to the geos particualalry structural information about the rocks. But... sample representivity is a big topic to get into...
There is a cost vs benefit with RC vs Diamond. It all depends what you are trying to do and need to know. Keep in mind that it is rare to do RC drilling in an underground mine because it produces too much dust, but some folks are working on it.
