 |
|
|
|
|
September 15, 2003
Opal Mining Update - No 22 Found a bit more Opal and some Potch and Color |
|
Well we are just about there, all I had to do this morning was to put
grease in the new bearing and check to front bearing, which means taking
out some of the old grease and putting a little new grease in, then I went
under ground and pulled a shot and got ready for drilling a shot tomorrow
and that was it for today, all went well and the blower is working well
and I had no problems at all, for a change.
This is where I found that nice little bit of red crystal just under the arrow in the Alinite, but here I don't think the Alinite being on the sandstone is going to produce for me, I need for it to disappear or at least get up in the roof a bit more and get some sandstone between it and the level, so we will just have to wait and see what happens further in.  |
This is the old shot next door and the last one that I did before I had
the breakdown as you can see I have not pulled the dirt as I will not be
going any further with this drive, it is at the wrong angle for me and
there was nothing in the level anyway, end of drive!
 |
|
Remember this old drive, this was the first I did after I got the water
out of the claim, it ended up 25 feet out from the shaft with the pipes
down, I will be cleaning this out after I have done one more shot in the
drive that I am now doing, this is for two reasons.
(1) As I said in the first place, way back in the beginning that I was going to make this drive about 40 foot long so I could see what was on the other side of the main slide and I should be under a old drive that goes from right to left from the old time miners from the late 1960's, I want to see if there is a ironstone level on the other side and if there is any chance of opal of course and I am not that far off at the end of the drive right now. (2) I will then be able to stay underground when I let the bombs off in this other drive I have started and with the next drive as well, and when I have finished these other drives I will also be able to stay down all the time from then on and it will cost me a bit less in explosives as I will be able to make the fuses shorter, which is the biggest cost in making bombs next to the detonators.  |
This is the shot being drilled for today, the holes at the bottom are the
one's that give me the most trouble as it is fairly wet and it is slow and hard on the back drilling these.
 |
You can see how the dirt is when I squeeze it together, it will form a
ball and when its like this it sticks to the auger and is hard to get out
of the hole and I can also only drill in about 3 inches at a time and then I have to clean out the hole, but I get it done.
 |
|
The shot went off good and after pulling the fumes, I went down to
check the level and see if I have made any wages today, but sad to say
again it had cost money to go to work and come home with nothing, but
there is always the next shot, but I have to be honest in saying that I
don't think I will find any more opal until I have done another 4 shots at
least with this drive, but as I said after one more shot in this drive I
am going to continue the drive with the pipes in for about 4 shots which
is 16 feet or so.
Although I said that I found nothing in the shot this was true, but right under the 3rd shaft I found some small thin pieces of green opal and a bit of potch and I have no idea where this came from as I found no trace anywhere else on the floor or on the shot dump itself and I check with a black light I cannot really miss anything that is lying around on top of the floor or dump, so I figured that this has to have fallen down from the shaft. So I took out my other square hole as I call it and first thing this morning set up over the 3rd shaft and went down to check where this trace had come from, but it had not come from here at all, so now I am really confused as to where it did come from and to just get to be exactly under the shaft and nowhere else.  |
This is the shot after I have blow the roof as well, makes quite a pile,
you can still see the Alinite in the wall at the back, don't know how much
further this will go, but it is also all the way around to the left as
well, under the shaft that I go down in.
 |
I know that I have just shown you this drive but here I am showing you how
the dirt gets blown everywhere, so if you look at the photo above and at
this one you will see the difference, this I will not clean up until I
have to go into this drive and continue the drive.
 |
Here you can see there is a very large lump of Alinite, I have pulled
about half of the shot at this point, but now have to stop to brake this
large lump, which took me 25 minutes.
 |
Not that I was posing for the camera, but as I turned around to see if it
was blinking in the self timer mode the flash went off, but I am about to
start jack picking the Alinite into bits then I will have a bit of a look
at the back of the shot to see if there is any trace in the level or roof
now it has been blown down.
 |
Now it is all broken up, but sad to say there is more big stuff at the top
of the dump that will have to have the same treatment, it turns out that
one of these had a small vertical inside it, was opal as you will see, but
did not make it all skin to skin color, but hey, anything is better that
nothing and as I did not expect to find anything.
 |
Here you can just see the piece that I have broken off the main piece,
there are two brown marks to the left of the bottom arrow that says "this
has opal in it" this is where the vertical is on both pieces, not very
high, but as you will see it went right across the Alinite piece, so I
just sat down and broke up the piece carefully, taking out pieces of
sandstone (concrete) and putting then in the bag (at bottom) then when I
get home I will soak them in water to make it easier to get the opal out
without braking it up, I hope.
 |
Here is a shot of part of the vertical, you can some color on the right
side of it, this opal is in the sandstone that was in the Alinite, I also
found a little bit of this yesterday, but did not take a photo of it, so I
was on the look out today to see if thee was anymore around and here it
is, but I cannot see any more of it in the wall.
 |
You might wonder just what is this, well this is just about what I see
when using the black light, I have to turn off the hand light and the
black light is turned on all of the time, here in Coober Pedy our Opal (or
potch) shows up white, (more white than this) so I thought I would take a photo and see how it
turned out and its pretty good, any white you can see in the photo is opal
or potch, the big piece at the top has a line that runs across the bottom,
starting from the white piece on the right, this is part of that vertical,
that I have broken off.
 |
This is a photo of the best piece that I could see and the biggest.
 |
Another pic of the same piece.
 |
This is the piece of Alinite that the vertical was on, it is running
across the top between the 2 arrows, it is as you can see a big piece and this stuff is
very solid and heavy and in the roof this piece was upside down, do not want any of this to fall on me that's for
sure, would cause a bit of damage.
 |
Here is a close up of the vertical, there was a bit more of this that was
on the top of it, but came off in 2 pieces when I jack-picked it, one day
I might find one that is 2 or 3 inches wide and about 8 or 9 inches high
and runs for some 3 to 4 feet and all color, might be worth about 1/2 a million.
 |
|
Here we ready for the next shot to be drilled, the Alinite on the left is
getting a bit thinner and the gypsum in the roof is also getting a bit
less, which for me is good, I recon that when this Alinite goes away and I
have some sandstone above the level I may see some material come back into
the level again.
Found another piece of that vertical in a lump of concrete next to the face at the top of the dump, so I have shown you below where it came from.  |
Here is the piece of what we call concrete, very hard sandstone that feels
like concrete when you scratch it with your finger nail and it is very
hard to break, the bit of opal does not look much here, but I then broke
off the top and bottom of this piece and put the piece with the bit of
opal in the bag to bring home.
 |
This is a photo I took up top in the sunlight just before I came home,
looks a bit better here, but it is doublet material as it did not make
skin to skin and has a potch bar in it.
 |
|
Drilled and fired the shot of 9 bombs, also drilled 2 in the roof, loaded
them and will fire them when I go home, check the level and I found a bit
of trace in two places but nothing worth taking a photo of, so after
jack-picking all of the level down and making sure that there was nothing
there, I packed up the equipment ready to bring up, then lit the 2 bombs
in the roof and came up top.
So when I go back on Monday first thing is to check the shot from the roof to see in there is anything that catches the eye, if not will start pulling the shot and if there is not to many big pieces from the roof I hope to pull the lot and get it ready for the next shot, but will have to wait and see. |
|
Well here we are at the start of another week, this is what is left of the
last shot after I have blown the roof down and nearly pulled all of the dirt,
but when I get to this stage of the shot I check the face and level to see if
there is anything there also I will try to trim the face to being as flat as
possible, so there is no overhanging material that is dangerous to me as I work
under it, so I jack pick anything that looks bad or suspicious.
In this case as I jack picked a piece of some potch with color came off the face just on the level where that white line is below but at the bottom, you will also notice that the Alinite is getting less, which is what I want and there is some trace coming back in the level although most of it is rubbish it is encouraging as it means that it can make a opal pocket at any time and the sooner the better for me.  |
This is where the potch and color came from, if you look at the Alinite
closely at the bottom of the line that comes from the top of the photo
where I have pointed out the place that the potch and color came
from, I thought that it was going to make a another vertical about 1 and a
half inches high but when I jack-picked this bit here in the photo it was
all of a sudden gone with no more trace of it at all.
 |
This is the potch and color from above, see that it try's to make green
again, so far this claim has only made Crystal and Semi Crystal and about
4 ounces of poor gray which I have called potch and color.
 |
This is the type of trace that I am getting right now, not worth anything
but interest.
 |
|
This is today's job nearly done all I have to do now is make the bombs,
load them, go up and start the blower, come back down and light the bombs,
but the big difference today is that I will be staying underground while
the bombs go off, I will be far enough from the shot face down at the end
of the drive that I had the pipes in.
I now can use fuses 3 feet shorter than I have been using, so this makes the shot quite a bit cheaper for me Roughly about a Dollar a bomb and there is 11 bombs in the shots at the moment, again here you can see that the Alinite is getting a bit thinner which is good for me, but as it is on the left side of the drive, but this drive is not the main drive that I have to do in this direction, the main drive will be running parallel to the main slide and connecting to a shaft about 45 feet away and will be to the left of this one going off at a slight angle to the left also from this one, this drive is going towards the main slide on a angle and will be only about another 2 or 3 shots more or 8 to 12 feet, then I may divert off more to the right at the end of the drive and connect to another shaft later on.  |
This is after the shot but before I have checked the level with the
jack-pick, the ground is very hard here and it took me awhile to check it
all, but no opal I'm afraid only trace, found a couple pieces of very thin
skin shell with good color and a full clam mud shell on the level on the
left hand side of the drive and most of the trace was on the left hand
side of the drive as well, looks like this is the way to go, but later.
 |
This is my neighbor, they have brought in their blower to make things easier
for them, they drilled another shaft so they could set the blower up on it and
finish opening up and so far they have found no opal but are chasing a bit of
trace that is the level, if it does not pay off for them soon they will move on.
 |
|
I went to work and after I had got down the first thing as you know is I
check the roof that I blew down before I went home yesterday, but this
time it did not get blown down, I must have drilled the holes a bit to high or
the roof has got a bit stronger through some gypsum coming back in
within the 4 foot that I have drilled, anyway I will have to drill and
fire it again tomorrow, but this time with 3 bombs as I will have to drill
in between the 2 top holes that have already been blown and drill 2 holes
about a foot and half below them for the new bombs and that will fix it,
at more cost of course.
So anyway I pulled about 3/4 of the shot, put the gear away and then came home as I don't have any fuses or cordex on the field to make any bombs with, I do have the Nitropril (Ammonium Nitrate) underground as when I take a bag out to the claim it stays underground, but the papers, cordex and fuses I take out as and when I need them. Went to work and put the drill down and went straight to work drilling the 3 holes in the roof, made up the bombs, loaded them, put the drill away and lit the fuses and came up to start the blower, while I was pulling the fumes for the bombs I did other things like filling the generator with fuel, getting the jackpick ready by hanging on the seat hook for taking down, along with the camera etc, when I think it is clear enough I go down to have a look and then to pull the rest of the shot, but this time as I got down and off the seat my back was sore, felt like I have pulled or twisted a muscle or the early stages of having a trapped nerve that some times happens to me. So rather than aggravate what ever it was, as I have done in the past I packed up straight away and came up this was about 9am, I put the gear away and went over to my neighbor and had a chat for a while and my back was getting worse at that point so I came home, had a shower and laid around all day on the sofa watching a couple of vides and resting the back see how we feel in the morning, but I have had up to 16 days off with this back when I have done it in proper, for all you that remember last January when this happened to me at the beginning of the month and then I was getting ready for our holidays. Stayed off to give the back a rest as it did give me a little pain last night in bed when ever I turned over, so today will do it good and I should be able to go back to work tomorrow I hope. Unluckily for me, the 100lb gas bottle that runs the gas stove in the kitchen ran out of gas on last night, so I had to take it off and go and get a full one this morning, which aggravated the muscle even more and I was really in pain there for a while until Pat (my wife) came home give me some pain killers, which helped after a while. Funny thing last night about 8pm I got up off the lounge to go and make a cupper and the back was better, no pain at all and no restriction what so ever, must have twisted the muscle I guess, any this morning I am fit, well as fit as normal and can go back to work tomorrow, glad it was only a minor thing this time. Again I Hope you have enjoyed this issue and look forward to the next one, hopefully I will have some more good photos to show you in the next issue and maybe some of Good Looking Opal and lots of it, I am still hoping that this will be a good year for us in mining, so stay with us over the next few months and find out what goes on in our part of the world as far as Opal Mining goes. Stay Tuned for the next Issue, who knows what I will have to report. Until the next issue.........  and wish me lots of LUCK.
Cya Later, Stuart Bird. To return back to the Archived Page for more Updates click, Here! |
Top
|