Sampling For Mineralization With The Axiom Ground Balance Window

[timbus59]

I have a bank of bench gravels on my claim that is some distance from water, with precarious tailings piles in between.  I'd like to take samples along the length of the bank, but I don't want to haul a bunch of heavy buckets across dangerous tailings piles to the water.

Then I got this idea.  If you open up the Axiom's ground balance window (press and hold the GB button until you get a double beep) and sweep it across a sample area of the bank (lets say 6' X 6") it should give you an average for the mineralization for that sample area.  Then you repeat the process taking sample readings along the length of the bank. The most mineralized areas (hottest) that have the highest GB window numbers, may be most likely to contain more gold.

I'd then haul buckets from just the hottest areas, reducing my chances of breaking a leg. 🙂

Does the idea of using the GB window to pick the best samples from the most mineralized ground seem sound?

[JCR]

I don't think there is any difference between a VLF & PI detector, but on a VLF, Ground Balance numbers do not indicate the level of mineralization. It indicates the general type & conductivity of the ground. With that said, your idea may be valid, the same as using GB #s to trace Black Sand deposits. But this has more to do with Specific Gravity in an undisturbed setting.  Rock piles would be much more random.

The older analog VLFs that had an analog meter often had a Calibration point to differentiate between Mineral vs Metallic. This feature was used to sample ore to determine it's potential content. You would think modern digital machine could/would offer this same feature for ore sampling.