Paragon Geochemical is a mid-size provider of commercial assay lab services to the mining and exploration industries. Paragon is committed to providing assay services that meet all industry and regulatory standards of best practice while consistently beating industry expectations for turnaround time and customer service. Read below for a detailed description of our sample preparation process.
Paragon will prepare and analyze geologic samples to quantify precious, base, and trace metal contents. The clock starts ticking when new samples arrive at our door. Lab will handle all aspects of sample preparation using best practices and offer dry storage for pulps and rejects.
Pre Operation Checks:
Wash rock and wash sand: Wash rock is purchased from Martin Marietta Spanish Springs Quarry in Sparks, NV. Rock material is mortar and pestle to -75 microns and analyzed by 50AR-MS for ultra-trace elements. Wash silica sand is 30 mesh construction sand sourced from Home Depot and is analyzed with the same method as the wash rock.
Equipment: Sample crushers and grinders (pulverizers) have their wear surfaces checked for gold contamination. This is performed using barren rock that is passed through the crushers and pulverized by mortar and pestle, then analyzed for metals down to ultra-trace levels. Wash sand is pulverized by each bowl set from the ring mills as well as each plate pulverizer, then pulp materials analyzed by the same method as the crushers.
Processing Checks:
Pre-sample processing washes: At the beginning of each sample job that requires preparation, either two or three wash rock blanks are crushed and pulverized. These samples will be analyzed for gold if any of the first three client samples contain greater than 0.500 ppm gold. If the pre-job blanks analyze higher than 1 ppm gold, the client is notified that their samples may be contaminated by up to 1% of the blanks’ gold value.
Prep duplicates: A prep duplicate is run at random for every 37 samples. These dupes are a second pulp split from a single client sample that are pulverized for analysis. Results are compared to one-another with a precision tolerance generally 20% of each pair’s mean. Low concentration samples can experience greater precision deviations.
Mesh tests: Every 40 samples will be checked for mesh (particle) size on the pre-split crushed sample as well as the pulverized (pulp) material.
Our lab will store all client samples for an unlimited amount of time for a monthly fee. We have a safe and secure storage location that is properly managed and well-organized.