Alright, so give me a sense of what we've got going on here.
Well first of all it's a little cold, the temperature has dropped.
But what we have going on here is the drilling process has just started.
So you can see the drill rig back there, it's in the, it's actually kind of like a small
semi-trailer and you see that orange rod that's sticking up, that's the angle of the drill
hole that's going down into the ground and what's been completed to date over the last
couple days is they've drilled through about 100 feet of overburden and they've set the
steel casing down in the bedrock.
And so the drill crew is getting ready to start coring the bedrock and that's a hollow
barrel with the diamond and segated tip on it and it just cuts out a cylinder of the
rock going down.
This particular hole will go down about 1500 feet.
In order to drill that we have to manage the rock cuttings that come up out of the hole.
And so they're excavating a hole there which is called a sump, okay, that the drill cuttings
will go into and that sump will be lined with that black plastic liner there and this is
all according to the administrative code here in the state of Wisconsin how to be in
our regulates this process.
So the sump holds the cutting so any of the issues that just stays right there and then
eventually that'll just get sealed up.
Yeah, so the drill cuttings will go into the sump, they'll go in as a slurry so there'll
be some water and some bentonite next in there.
Once the hole is done the cuttings and the bentonite will settle out that water will
be decanted into an adjacent hole so it can just percolate into the ground.
Those drill cuttings and the bentonite will be mixed with Portland cement to solidify it
and then it'll be covered with that plastic liner and then the whole area will be buried
and re-fined.
So how do you feel about the progress that's been made so far?
Well it's been a little slow because last week it was warm and we had some rain up here
so that makes it, you have to take a little more care just to get things set up so that's
delayed things a little bit but it's very cold now which is actually good conditions
for doing the drilling and so once we get that sump constructed they'll be able to start
making some pretty good progress on the holes.
And what is your geologist or what is their title?
The field geologist?
Yes.
It's what are they here for?
So they're here so we've got two geologists out here and they work in tandem.
We've got drill crews that are working 24 hours a day on shifts and so those field geologists
are out here overseeing the work of the drilling contractor making sure they're doing everything
in accordance with the environmental permits that the project's been issued.
And then they're also tasked with when the exploration court comes out they're taking
that back to the core processing facility where they log the geology, process the core, cut
it up in the segment, send it off to a lab where the lab tests it for things like copper
and golden touring.
And the metal pipes over there is that the casing?
So that is the drill rod.
Okay.
So that's the drill rod.
So this hole will be about 1,500 feet deep so we need a lot of drill rod to go down
and get that.
Yeah.
All right.
I think that about covers what we're needing to know from the background so I think we'll
let Ethan just start getting videos of some of the action going on and then when he's
done out here then I think if you can take us inside the rig we'll take a look in there.
Okay.