Summer Placement 2016 Cardiff University - Week 5, The Final Chapter

In our final week here at Rudnik we started to wrap up our work, logging our final cores and making sure our notebooks were jam packed of invaluable notes learnt at the mine. To end our trip at Rudnik we learnt and practised stream sediment sampling in a small stream that represented both the Jesenica and Zlatarica drainage basins. Stream sediment sampling is one of the first methods when prospecting a new area and is deemed one of the most important.

We collected sediment from the slowest part of the stream. This is where we got the best representation of the drainage basin, meaning we had the best chance of identifying anomalies in the surrounding area from the material sent for assay. Five shovels were taken every 20 meters and were sieved twice, once to 10mm and then to 2mm and then bagged for assay.

Earlier in the week we also witnessed blasting of the new adit up at Strednji Šturac, here each time the selective blasting happened 1.2 meters were cleared, and each time we measured the height, width and shape of the new blasted hallway also recording structures and mineralisation that were now visible.

Unfortunately by the end of the week our time at Rudnik had come to a close and we now proceeded on to Belgrade before returning back to the UK. Rudnik had become a second home with strong relations being build with the project delivery team. The team itself at Rudnik are a credit to Mineco and I can say on behalf of both of us, we are very grateful to have been able to be part of the team even if it was for a snippet of time.

Alice