Resource World Magazine

F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 2 0 www.resourceworld.com 83 MININGWORLD C-horizon soil sampling "as the most effec- tive tool for delineating deposit potential in the Yukon." C-horizon soil is the layer of soil that develops right on top of the bedrock. The White Gold deposit and the Coffee Gold deposits were discovered using such soil samples collected by the GroundTruth team. Both the GT RAB Drill and the GT PROBE are mounted on rubber tracks and remotely controlled. Both are designed to have a low impact yet maintain high maneu- verability over rough terrain. About the GT Probe, Fage says, "That tool is exclusive to GroundTruth and what the GT Probe does is eliminate the need for trenching for a first pass underneath a soil anomaly. With the GT Probe we can go into an area with a light environmental footprint and take top of bedrock samples with a shallow drill rig. …It is cheaper and faster than traditional excavator trenching. Historically, we would have had to heliport in an excavator to go get top of bedrock samples under a soil anomaly. We might get 70 metres of trench a day. If we sample on 5 metre spacing with a GT Probe, we can get upwards 200 metres a day. We are covering, easily, three times the ground. Also, there is no reclamation liability expense; that is a real upside." Fage said the company is expanding their fleet of GT Probes. GroundTruth was one of the early adopters of drone technology and have over the last several years provided companies with instant, economical, high- resolution, project-scale imagery. This imagery is used to assess geomorphology and ground cover; survey planning and access, identify outcrop location, detect subtle topographic features, detail slope assessment and calculate 3D volumetric calculations. In 2020, GroundTruth is taking another step forward in adapting drone technol- ogy towards providing companies with an economical, target-specific LiDAR survey. Fage said, "The 2020 drone program that we are working toward will involve a multi rotor drone that can carry a payload. We will have the ability to attach multiple sen- sors to it. The first one that we are really working on is a LiDAR survey which tra- ditionally has been done by manned fixed wing or manned helicopter. With a light- weight LiDAR drone, we can capture an even denser LiDAR data set. It is meant for target scale mapping so when we have an area such as a soil anomaly that we want to map in detail we can go out with this multi rotor drone and do a LiDAR survey over the target and come up with a low cost, fast data turnaround of a really nice bare earth model that will help us target underneath the soil anomaly using detailed interpreta- tion of what the surface topography looks like under the soil anomaly." Fage added, "We are making sure that we are a company that is working on inno- vation and looking at new tools that will add value to exploration. … GroundTruth is putting a real focus on turning a corner with our real time data collection. We are putting more emphasis on taking real time data and running software processing to turn that data into information. Things like taking our XRF data and running that through a software process to turn it into rock classifications and interpretations that can add value and drive the explora- tion program. There is a big emphasis, this year, on not just real time data collection and delivery but also real time data pro- cessing and interpretation." Fage concluded, "An exploration pro- gram from a GroundTruth standpoint is not a static press play and run operation. It is a live process with live decisions that need to be made right up to the probabil- ity of finding a discovery. We want to get as much information out of data as we can, as we collect it, and use that information to drive the decisions in the next part of the exploration program." n

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