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Hi all,
I live in Black Sea Region of Turkey. I found huge amount melting slags that I thought it belonged to an ancient mystery mine. in order to find out which metal was processed, I sent the slag samples to XRF analysis. Results are below.
Fe; 13.3 %, Cu; 1.83 %, Mn; 0.08 %, Co; trace, Ni; 0.002 % Zn; 0.03 %, Pb; 0.05 %
Au; < 0.1 ppm and Ag; 7.8 ppm.
When looking at Au result, It seems to be under the detection limit of XRF analysis capability. They say that this means that gold may exist or not in slag. They also say that gold may be below 10 ppm or ıt won't exist at all. finally Fire assay must be done for slags. But if we theoretically consider and compare Ag result of 7.8 ppm and co-occurrence with a gold, There probably is an anomaly between silver and gold amount in the slag. So, what is the sub-limit of detection for the gold in XRF method?
I also found a milky quartz vein nearby slag heap. I sent it to Acmelab for fire assay. The result is 0.642 ppm. No visible gold in my pan.
So Should I go for further gold prospection like drilling where quartz vein I found according these value?
Any comment would be appreciated.
Erdem