We had a return visit today from Eimear Deady and Simon Tapster of the BGS and Dr Charlie Moon of the Camborne School of mines.

They bought along with them a handheld Niton XFR analyser.This incredible piece of kit allows you to analyse material in situ. Held over the object it will give you a read out of the minerals present. We had a few surprises – notably the presence of nickel in a couple of the randomly taken samples.  A number of specimens were taken away for further analysis.

We look forward to doing a larger sampling over the dumps during June.

Charlie brought along an example of an old river worn gossan sample. This is what the old miners would have been searching for indicating the presence of an outcropping mineral lode. Something similar would have been present here at Herodsfoot.