Stream Sediment Sampling Guide / Руководство по отбору проб донных отложений в ручье

Stream sediment geochemistry has been described as a very robust, successful mineral exploration technique and has proven to be effective even when sampling was poorly carried out (Fletcher, 1997). Much of its early success for discovering new mineral deposits in British Columbia can be traced to the pioneers of exploration geochemistry who recognized the ability of more mobile elements such as copper and zinc to concentrate in sediment from broad range of stream environments. This proved to be an advantage in the 1950’s when exploration focused primarily on the search for porphyry copper deposits. Sediment sampling techniques could afford to be less rigorous because formation of copper stream geochemical anomalies was less susceptible to the variations in sample site environment. However, it became apparent that geochemical surveys for gold and other heavy minerals needed more careful collection of sediment from a specific energy environment so that maximum anomaly contrast could be achieved. <...>