Here in the bottom of the pit, two drills are patterning the next blast. As you can see to the right, they have drilled many of the needed holes already. Each hole is precisely drilled into a specific location determined manually by several survey teams in the past, but by GPS now. The holes are typically no deeper than 30-35 feet in order to keep a uniform bench height as seen in the background and are subsequently loaded with ANFO (explosive). Rock samples are taken for each hole and lab work is done to determine the gold content. This information is added to the GPS coordinates in order to profile the area. This "profile" of the underlying rock is the "dig plan" for the loaders as they fill the haul trucks and determines where exactly the shattered rocks end up in the mining process.
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