Larvotto’s ECORE drill core scanning at Hillgrove: implications for mine geologists
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
30 Second Briefing
Larvotto Resources has purchased Elemission’s ECORE drill core scanning system for its Hillgrove antimony-gold project in New South Wales, making Hillgrove the only mine site in Australia with on-site laser ablation and atomic emission spectroscopy. The system will be used for both exploration and metallurgical development, enabling rapid, high-resolution elemental analysis directly on drill core rather than relying solely on off-site laboratory assays. For geologists and metallurgists, this should tighten geological models, speed domaining and recovery testwork, and improve decision-making on complex antimony-gold mineralisation.
Technical Brief
- ECORE uses laser ablation coupled with atomic emission spectroscopy directly on intact drill core surfaces.
- On-site deployment at Hillgrove removes sample transport and queue delays at commercial assay laboratories.
- Continuous scanning along core length supports finer-scale geochemical domaining than discrete laboratory pulps.
- Direct core analysis preserves textural context for antimony-gold associations during metallurgical characterisation.
- Rapid turnaround of multi-element datasets enables tighter iteration between drilling, logging and metallurgical testwork design.
- Integration of spectral outputs with 3D geological models should sharpen structural and lithological controls on mineralisation.
- For complex refractory antimony-gold systems, similar in situ scanners could materially shorten resource-to-feasibility timelines.
Our Take
Hillgrove’s antimony-gold focus puts Larvotto Resources into the small subset of our 57 antimony- and gold-keyword pieces where antimony is treated as a critical mineral rather than a by-product, which can strengthen its case for strategic or government support in New South Wales.
Being, per our related coverage, the only Australian mine site using Elemission’s laser ablation–atomic emission core scanner gives Larvotto a potential edge in defining complex antimony-gold mineralisation styles, which can materially tighten drill spacing requirements and shorten resource upgrade timelines.
Jake Klein’s recent comments on Australia ‘relying on luck’ for critical minerals strategy, referenced in another antimony-tagged piece in our database, suggest projects like Hillgrove that pair gold with a critical metal such as antimony may attract disproportionate policy and investor attention if they can demonstrate rapid technical de-risking.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
Related Articles
Related Industries & Products
Mining
Geotechnical software solutions for mining operations including CMRR analysis, hydrogeological testing, and data management.
CMRR-io
Streamline coal mine roof stability assessments with our cloud-based CMRR software featuring automated calculations, multi-scenario analysis, and collaborative workflows.
HYDROGEO-io
Comprehensive hydrogeological testing platform for managing, analysing, and reporting on packer tests, lugeon values, and hydraulic conductivity assessments.
GEODB-io
Centralised geotechnical data management solution for storing, accessing, and analysing all your site investigation and material testing data.


