At GreenRoc we are in the middle of a drill campaign, but what are we actually doing?

When we drill into the ground, we use a diamond drill. The drill bit is fitted with industrial diamonds, which are hard enough to cut through hard rocks and minerals such as quartz. The drill bit is hollow and attached to a series of drill rods that gets extended as the drill hole gets deeper. Every 3rd meter the innertube containing the drill core is pulled up to and a cylinder of the rock can be recovered, and then logged, sampled and tested in a variety of ways.

Once the core is extracted additional tests can be caried out in the deep hole. We are for example measuring how water flows through fractures in the rock.

There are many ways geologists can make qualified predictions about what lies underground, with the use of geophysical methods, structural mapping etc., However, drilling is the only way to get actual proof of and sample what sits underground. So even though it is expensive and logistically challenging in remote areas, it is a crucial step in every mineral exploration project.  and an ongoing activity also after the mine opens and you need to direct the next step in the mining.

At Amitsoq we are drilling a down to a few hundred meters, but it is possible to drill thousands of meters until the crust gets too hot for the drill to operate.