Dam, didn't think I'd see another mining person on hackernews. Exploration geology that far down is wild. Was it core sampling all the way from grade or only in mineralized zones?
Core sampling the whole way. Outskirts of jundee at wiluna. Punched a few holes down the side of the pit while I was there and the deep holes were for underground to work out where they were going. Most target zones 800-1200. I got lucky as the drillers I offsided with were absolute guns so we got the hard stuff. Best day we cracked >100m in our 12 hours and cross shift got 80m. 22mins was out fastest 6m off memory. That was shallow work tho, deep holes can take 45m just to pull a core tube.
I don't drill any more but do kind of miss the work.
