Drilling will resume tomorrow. Meanwhile Mabatho is catching up with core logging and the drillers insert the new rods down the hole in preparation of drilling.
2024-10-10
Due to the inclination of the hole now being 12° we are currently putting a new strategy into place to correct this. Meanwhile the drillers are pulling out the rods to replace the drill bit as well as to inspect the rods at the base of the hole as they appear to be bending.
Speaking to over 100 learners at Dihlabakela high school, near the drilling site! Lots of great questions about drilling (especially diamonds in the drill bit). Susan Webb was joined by Moyagabo Rapetsoa from the Wits Seismic team!
The first upper 100 meters of core material have been packed, ready to be transported to the Council for Geoscience in Pretoria where they will be scanned.
Prof Wolf Maier (Cardiff University) visited the Drill Core Repository of the University of the Free State on 26 - 27 August 2024 to collect samples from donated drill cores within the BVDP project. He has sampled across the Lower Critical – Upper Critical Zone transition up to the level of the UG2 chromitite and intends to obtain whole-rock lithophile and platinum-group element data for comparison with existing data from the Western Limb of the complex.
“Dr Wilhelm Nikonow and Dominic Göricke of the BGR sampling donated cores from BVDP borehole 5067_2_A (BH7772) at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein (12-14 August 2024). They intend to characterise a continuous section through the Main Magnetite Layer using micro-XRF and LIBS.
The stratigraphy has been established, we have drilled through MG 1-4, LG 5-7. Freddie has taken a sample at 690.9 m to prepare a thin section which will help confirm the presence of olivine.
At the same time: The kitchen has been relocated to the new container while the earlier kitchen container now became the home of Mini Ruedi, which is constantly monitoring the gas composition of the mud fluid. It has been successfully set up. Katlego has received training from Roelene and feels much more confident.
This afternoon, we intersected two LG-6 massive chromitite seams separated by a 1m thick pyroxenite layer. The first seam was encountered at 606.1 m with a thickness of 0.40 m, and the second seam at 607.4 m with a thickness of 0.95 m. The seams have been sampled for microbiology purposes.
LCZ LG-7 massive chromitite seam (30 cm thick) was intersected at 579.91 m. A 72 cm long microbiology sample was collected, which includes a pyroxenite hanging wall (30 cm) and footwall (12cm).
We have encountered the first appearance of visible sulphide mineralization at 500 m, manifesting as fine disseminations within feldspathic pyroxenite. The current depth is 518 m.
We were thrilled to host esteemed guests from the Council for Geoscience (CGS) on the BVDP drill site today! We had insightful and productive discussions about geology, sharing knowledge and exploring new ideas. A big thank you to our visitors for their valuable contributions and for making this day a remarkable one! #Geology #CGS #KnowledgeSharing #EarthSciences
While the hole is being cemented Mabatho is undertaking lithological logging of the drill core. In the background the core boxes are stackedand ready to move to the Marula Mine core yard