Tech to Accelerate Assay Turnaround in BC

Why It Matters

Faster assay turnaround lets explorers act within limited seasonal windows, improving drilling efficiency and discovery potential.

Key Takeaways

• PhotonAssay delivers gold, silver, copper results in ~2 minutes
• Veracio scanner adds rapid multi‑element geochemical data without destroying samples
• Integrated workflow cuts assay turnaround, enabling real‑time drilling decisions
• Early adopters include Barrick and Newmont, accelerating exploration cycles
• Paragon’s BC hub creates a hub‑and‑spoke model for fast data delivery

Pulse Analysis

British Columbia’s Golden Triangle presents one of the most time‑pressured environments in mineral exploration. With field seasons often truncated by snow and long haul distances, companies can lose an entire drilling window if assay results arrive late. Paragon Advanced Labs addresses this bottleneck by pairing Chrysos Corp.’s PhotonAssay with Veracio’s whole‑rock scanner at its new BC hub. The combined system shifts analysis from a batch‑oriented lab process to a near‑continuous workflow, delivering actionable geochemical data while crews are still on site.

PhotonAssay uses high‑energy X‑rays to quantify gold, silver and copper in as little as two minutes, and it does so without destroying the sample. That non‑destructive advantage preserves material for follow‑up tests such as mineralogy or metallurgical assays. Immediately after the X‑ray read, the same specimen passes through Veracio’s rapid scanner, which maps a broader suite of elements across the rock matrix in seconds. The resulting multi‑element dataset provides pathfinder signatures that geologists can overlay on drill‑hole models, dramatically shortening the decision loop from weeks to days.

The integrated platform is already attracting early adopters like Barrick and Newmont, who cite faster turnaround as a key factor in maintaining exploration momentum. Paragon’s hub‑and‑spoke model also promises to scale the technology across other remote jurisdictions, creating a networked intelligence layer for the mining sector. As data‑driven exploration becomes the norm, firms that can compress the sample‑to‑insight cycle will gain a competitive edge, ultimately translating into higher discovery rates and more efficient capital deployment.