Digital scanning of drill cores is relatively unique to the mining industry but provides unprecedented advantages such as global accessibility to a core library.

This means exploration teams from anywhere around the world can access the central unit using LAN technology. They can, for example, query the database in which information on drill cores previously scanned and evaluated is stored.

The portable DMT system digitises and archives drill cores and conducts analysis with the help of integrated software.

The scanner measures the entire circumference of samples by rotating these beneath the scanner to give an exact picture of the substrates being studied. Rock faults, stratum structure, clefts, grain distribution and porosity are analysed and depicted accurately with the CoreScan system, DMT said.

The integrated software makes it possible to discriminate among the minerals present and to conduct quantitative analyses. The software can also differentiate by grain size.

“With this application we can determine, for instance, the ore content within the core sample," DMT said.

With the assistance of the digital core sample library all the data previously scanned can be arranged both spatially and through time; individual images can be assembled to represent the entire length of the core sample.