- How to Read a Drill Result

A drill result is the most fundamental unit of mining data. It tells you what a drill hole found underground: what metal is there, how concentrated it is, and over what length of the drill core.

When a mining company drills, they extract a cylindrical core of rock. That core is split, sampled, and sent to a laboratory for chemical analysis (assay). The lab reports back the concentration of target metals at specific intervals along the core.

A typical drill result looks like this: "12m at 3.5 g/t Au from 85m." This means the lab found gold at an average concentration of 3.5 grams per tonne of rock, over a 12-metre section of drill core, starting at 85 metres depth.