Sorry I have to disagree
@tuts And sorry for the first attempt, I failed to add the picture....
If you take a closer look (in picture I have enlarged) the piece of core that is being cut looks like the small piece from the box (as pointed to by the arrow) Also notice the small piece in the box next to it, IMO the travel of the drill slide looks to be 600mm (guess) so IMO (only) I think that the cores would be cross cut (where needed, my take is the core does break when being taken out of the drill pipe so some pieces will be smaller) and then cut in half along the length with half being sent to Georgetown for assay preparations before going to Perth, and the other half kept in a safe place.
View attachment 1073662
The "spray" mist would be a combination of dust and water (use water is common for these type of saws, as you mentioned, as it is for any type of masonry/hard rock saws, the fact the operator isn't wearing gloves doesn't surprise me with water and wet gloves (leather) being an issue, the wearing of PVC/rubber gloves wouldn't be a wise option as it would make handling the cores difficult. As for the apron looking new, its probably because it is new being the first lot of cores being cut, the fact that it also looks clean could be put down to the water spray.
Can't answer why the photos were not in the "first hole completed" announcement, but as you said whats another few thousand $$, but the company were keen to get that announcement out and the cutting of the cores would of began later (possibly?) Also I can only offer the explanation that we have no idea when the photos were taken as there is no time stamps on them, but I would assume it would take a bit of work cutting up 160 mtrs of drilling cores on such a small saw. So just going by the timing of the announcements, cutting the cores would take 3 days before the samples are sent off.
Some better and clearer close up pictures would of been better, but in reality would that have made a difference? Could anyone actually be able to say, "wow, that core looks great, We have Lithium" (if they did, I would probably ask for his Geologist credentials for them to be able to make that call,
)
Only the assay/s results will decide.
All the above IMO only
cheers
