rios Posted May 12, 2017 Author Share Posted May 12, 2017 4 hours ago, jasong said: Have a map of faults in the area? Might be worth tracking if you find more out of place rocks. There is a large plain near where I live which is flat right now but has sequences of much older rocks in the alluvium due to a huge block that was faulted down. At one time there were mountains, but they "fell" slowly, filling in the valleys and leaving a large flat plain after erosion leveled off the parts of the peaks which didn't sink completely underground. So, there are lots of out of place rocks there, and often they can indicate what lies underneath, or where "underneath" was 100 million years ago, which is now somewhere else. Unfortunately there are no old maps for the area. What you are saying may be possible especially since the covering top layer (regolith) is 1.5m of mudstone. For all its worth we will open up the are where the rock came from and investigate further. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rios Posted May 12, 2017 Author Share Posted May 12, 2017 Just to spread the risk I have decided to sink a shaft on the claim where people are already mining while I still decide on the way forward on my own land. The guys are now 4 meters deep and have now reached competed rock which we are now drilling using a jack hammer and explosives. We will give the owner of the property 25% of whatever we get. Its a sort of tribute arrangement. We are sinking a vertical shaft targeting the known proven reef 40m below. In a month's time we should get there. This project is just to diversify the risk. It is actually less risky because it is on the brownfield where people are already mining. Most of the miners abandon their shafts because of water at around 70m. We are hopping to go beyond these levels as we will be having the proper pumping systems that they are generally reluctant to invest in. We will collar the shaft soon enough Below are the pictures 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasong Posted May 12, 2017 Share Posted May 12, 2017 Fascinating, it's like watching a forum version of Gold Rush Africa, except with just good parts, the mining. Keep us all updated! If you ever are looking for volunteers let me know. Especially if you need anyone to operate a detector, which I guess probably is not something needed if you have that much mudstone. But if I could get away from work for a trip long enough, I'd love to see all the mining in Africa firsthand, that stuff just isn't happening over here much anymore. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rios Posted May 12, 2017 Author Share Posted May 12, 2017 29 minutes ago, jasong said: Fascinating, it's like watching a forum version of Gold Rush Africa, except with just good parts, the mining. Keep us all updated! If you ever are looking for volunteers let me know. Especially if you need anyone to operate a detector, which I guess probably is not something needed if you have that much mudstone. But if I could get away from work for a trip long enough, I'd love to see all the mining in Africa firsthand, that stuff just isn't happening over here much anymore. Haha in Africa we havent even started exploiting the ground resources. Its a pity our laws are bad and the political risk is too high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rios Posted May 22, 2017 Author Share Posted May 22, 2017 I am thinking of sinking 2 shafts now, maybe 30 to 35m deep then digging a tunnel to connect them. That way will I not intercept the reef? How feasible is that? The cost of digging the 2 shafts is very low here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rios Posted May 22, 2017 Author Share Posted May 22, 2017 Meanwhile on the other shaft the guys are now 10.5 meters deep. Progress is slow but I am hoping the pace will quicken this week as I now have 10 guys digging. The rock is changing from weathered granitoid to more competent granite and soon we should be in bluestone which is quite hard. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rios Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 13.7m now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rios Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 And got to visit a place nearby with old german shafts. The guys there are pumping out water with the hope of mining there 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rios Posted July 27, 2017 Author Share Posted July 27, 2017 Quote I am attaching photos of the progress so far. We had intended to drive into the reef at 35m and then tunnel along it but the grades there were too low and we decided to continue sinking the shaft down. Water is coming out of the reef so we dug a sump at 35 m in the drive so we pump water from it while we sink downwards. The shaft is now 38m deep. Our target is 55 to 66m as that is the depth where the guys in the area have been getting high-grade ore. There is a lot of water but we are pumping it out well using a diaphragm pump. So currently we are 38m down-shaft and progressing slowly. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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