ACTIVITY: CORE SAMPLING

Objective: To demonstrate how geologists can find (discover) mineral deposits that are buried in
the Earth’s crust and determine what their distribution is by collecting and analyzing cores.

Materials:

Clays (Yellow, Blue, Brown)

Clear Bowl

Plastic Straw

Instruction:

1. Mold the clay into several layers from bottom to top: thick brown, thin blue, thick brown, thin
yellow, thick brown. Differences in thickness with irregularities in the layers are encouraged.

2. Draw a scaled representation of the bowl on the manila paper.

3. Get one straw, position it in the middle of the bowl and drill (push in rotating manner)
vertically down the bottom. Pull the straw out.

4. Make sure to have the drawing representation on scale of each layer similar to the bowl.

5. Drill the second and third holes in the left side and right side of the bowl, respectively.
Include the findings in the drawing.

Guide Questions:

1. Are the mineral deposits (represented by the yellow clay for gold and blue clay for
copper) evenly distributed in the bowl? Explain its relevance.

2. Can the drill cores indicate how deep the mineral deposits are?

3. How can additional drill holes affect geological interpretations?