Prospecting for gold in the Congo

November 25, 2010

The mining sector has received much media coverage recently with the elation of the rescued miners in Chile and the sad news from the coal mine in New Zealand.

Mining images from these and many other locations are always filled with huge drilling rigs, life-sized Tonka trucks and landscapes scrapped bare following the excavation of precious resources. But at the front end – in the prospecting phase – it can be very different.

Recently Van Walt was on site with Loncor, in the DRC at an inaccessible site, in the depths of the jungle and a helicopter ride away from ‘civilisation’.

Our Window Sampling System proved invaluable as it is lightweight and very mobile, delivering virtually undisturbed samples for horizon evaluations. Being low maintenance and highly reliable it has proved accurate in taking samples of the saprolite layer necessary in gold exploration. Easy to use, after training, the system is now getting more meterage than the diamond drillers!

This is a very different image of the mining industry but one that must be replicated the world over in the search for this most precious of resources.