Summer Placement - Week 5 Gorazde, Bosnia
Week 5 started with resumption of week 4’s core logging and sampling. After almost finishing with the 3rd borehole, we took some time out to visit the Western part of the license area, Kordici. After mapping a path for the road last week, we revisited to check up on progress and take a look at the preparation for the next proposed drill site. Everything seemed in place and, other than the road being a very bumpy ride, everything else had gone smoothly and drilling should start there in the next couple of days.
After this we had to map a ‘road cut’ and carry out channel sampling. This involved, first, making a quick sketch of the general shape of the road cut then annotating it with basic measurements like height and width of the intervals (for sampling) along the bottom. Then we would mark on the geology and any interesting features e.g. quartz veins and faults along with their measurements; strike, dip and dip direction. Then, finally just make note of the coordinates at the beginning of each section of the road cut. After this we needed to take channel samples. This involved dividing each section of the road cut into 2 or 3 meter intervals depending on geology and/or structures and then use a battery saw to outline the 5 – 10cm wide channel that will be sampled. Then one person had to go along with a hammer and chisel taking the sample whilst another held a gutter (the catching devise) underneath to catch all the falling material. This was then put into a sample bag ready for analysis.
When we returned to the house we were able to make an accurate cross section from our observations and measurements. This method is a very neat way of simply representing the structures and geology of a particular area.
We ended the week on a high, finally coming across some mineralization in our forth bore hole and also revisiting the underground (one of my favorite parts of the job) to check out an area we will be mapping next week. It’s definitely been the hottest week so far, reaching temperatures of 40°C! So it was nice to finish the week with a swim in the river Drina to cool down – so beautiful.
Maddy Tracey
