If it was me, I would be grabbing some
sample bags/sand bags and
chip channel sampling those veins at 6' sections. A simple
pick hammer or
cold chisel w/
drilling hammer will work. I would get some orange spray paint and mark and label the sections at the foot level or whatever you like. Obviously in your setting GPS coordinates won't work since you are underground and thus using the foot depth in that adit would be more logical. Use the same numbers to label your bag and/or to put a sample number on a card and put it in the bag. Then send it off for fire assay so you know what that stuff runs before spending a lot money on buying more equipment. I agree it looks really good and you may have some serious values in those contact zones of +10g/t or more. However, speaking from experience, I have seen gold values really vary in hard rock wildly and just because it ran 10' to the left at 50g/t does not mean that it is uniform and will run at the same values. I have seen 200g/t and then 1g/t within the same vein 10' apart.
I hadn't planned on sampling that close together down the system, but I will follow the advice of those that know better. I've got the entire length of it marked every 25' so getting samples on an interval will be dang easy. DeWalt makes heavy duty, well they're crayons that are great for marking steel and rock. Lowe's sells good sandbags for less than sixty cents each.
There are some really interesting isolated pockets in there as well.
About the rock, I know you mentioned it is andesite that is in the middle of the two veins in this setting but what is the country rock here that it is intruding into? Most of my experience is in intrusive rock (porphyry granitic type rocks) that are intruding in greenstone terrains. I am curious if your veins are bounded by some non igneous rocks there and it is more like a skarn deposit.
The country rock varies across that hillside from andesite/rhyolite to eroded pegmatite that's pretty heavy in feldspar. If the last 170' trend goes to the GMM Pit, it will cut some schist layers as well. There's a small shaft about 800' away from the adit portal that I've taken a look at. There the quartz vein is about 12"-24" wide and intrudes directly into the pegmatite. They cribbed the shaft all the way down, which is about 45' I expect. I haven't been down into it yet.
If you take a look at the "Exploring Copper and Gold Contact Zones" video, you'll be able to see what the geology has to offer there. Minus the metamorphics, the country rock is the same to the north where the adit runs.
We have found good amounts of peridotite around this claim as well. There's good wulfenite to the south about a quarter mile, but you know how that is, a quarter mile is like a 1000 miles sometimes when it comes to shifting geology.
Have you been able to see any visual gold at all with any samples yet? Do you have a hand lens that you can check out your samples with? It will be worth your time to get one I think. It takes practice to master how to use it.
I've got a hand lens. I only brought back a few samples the first time I was out there three weeks ago and one could have visible gold. I didn't pick up anything this time around as sampling is on the itinerary for next weekend.
I do know that at the GMM Pit there's free gold in the dirt that's washed into it from the small area that drains into the pit.
What is interesting, and I haven't commented on this much at all yet, is the geochem. Three weeks ago I high centered the ATV in the wash that my claim borders to the north while getting it turned around. I had to dig out some rock from under it. 8-10" down, garlic. My girlfriend who was standing, oh, about 10' away behind the trailer asked about the smell coming from that small hole. Stopped a few hundred feet away, dug down about 2', faint garlic. The pit itself is heavy with garlic, you have to stop digging after about 3' into it to let the odor dissipate if you're not wearing a respirator with solvent grade filters. Lots of arsenic in that area and the gradient is somewhat easy to trace.
At any rate thanks for sharing your finds and good luck to you! I have commented on some of your youtube videos but I figured I would write this up here for people that may appreciate it.
Appreciate it. Which person are you on there, or just PM me here?
