Hi Impetuous,
Da Boss Mr Leaver told me - yes real people do speak to AZS geo's - the white is fresh rock at the pad not white pegmatite dust. These days there is very little dust. It's an OHS issue, particularly for a professional outfit like Topdrill.
At AZS we were seeing all these white dots suddenly appear and then getting impatient for results! But we were progressively drilling out the pads up to 5-600m DD holes and that takes time. Admittedly it goes faster when you have 8 diamond rigs spinning, but we learnt patience.
In an earlier post I noted it looks different at AS because of the thicker sedimentary cover. But the pads do seem to clean up/whiten post drilling. Sometimes you can see a bright white and that is the rig.
The CR announcement says at least those first 5 holes were shallow. At 70m per day they might have drilled 2 or 3 holes between satellite pass. October at 70m per day is circa 2100m. November with 2 rigs is 4200m. So by end Nov about 6500m at most - not 15000m as others suggest.
As Swifty says, it's difficult to be definitive. That's why we say "prep/hole" so as not to mislead.
To contrast the look, here's some of the new drilling the last few weeks at AZS TA3 - a SW extension towards the nickel. Very logical and obvious, cheers:
(20min delay)