Concept

How assays are stored

Sample the physical material — a drill interval or a surface sample QC samples standards · blanks · duplicates — they ride the very same chain Assay this sample, on this certificate Certificate one lab job — everything the lab returned together Assay units one element · one value · one unit, each by one analytical method Au 1.24 ppm · fire assay Cu 356 ppm · 4-acid ICP Method e.g. Au-AA24, ME-ICP61 — carries its detection limits Laboratory who ran it sent to the lab comes back on one per element × method measured by run by lists the methods used Below detection? Stored as a −1 sentinel plus the method's detection limit — never a fake zero. Same element by two methods? Both values are kept; your merge settings pick the winner for exports and logs. QC verdicts — did the standards read right, were the blanks clean — are judged certificate by certificate on the QC pages.

Lab results in geoDB are normalized — every measured value is stored once, with its full lab context, instead of as a flat spreadsheet. It's the single most important idea in the data model, and the reason QC checks, method comparisons and clean exports work later without hand-editing.

The chain, one link at a time

  • A sample is the physical material — a drill interval sample or a surface point sample — that you sent to the lab.
  • An assay is that sample's appearance on one lab job: it links the sample to a certificate.
  • A certificate is the lab job itself — everything the lab returned together, and a record of which analytical methods were used.
  • Each measured value is an assay unit: one element, one value, one unit — measured by exactly one method.
  • A method (Au-AA24, ME-ICP61, a lab's own code) belongs to a laboratory and carries its detection limits.

The spreadsheet the lab emailed you is a presentation of this chain — one row per sample, one column per element. geoDB unpacks it into the chain on import and can re-flatten it any time you export.

Why bother? Three payoffs

The same element, analysed two ways, never collides. A fire-assay gold value and an ICP gold value live side by side — each tied to its own method. Your project's merge settings decide which method wins when a single number is needed: on exports, strip logs, and the 3D display. You can change that preference any time without touching the stored data.

"Less than detection" is never a fake zero. Below-detection results are stored as a −1 marker plus the method's detection limit. Averages, statistics and exports can treat them properly — a real 0.00 and a "below 0.005" are different facts, and geoDB keeps them different.

QC rides for free. Standards, blanks and duplicates go through the same chain as ordinary samples, so every certificate can be judged — did the standards read back their certified values? were the blanks clean? — without any re-keying. That judging happens on the QC pages, covered in the next topic.

Where you see the pieces

Certificates, methods and labs each have their own pages under your project's data section — useful when a lab renames a method mid-program or a certificate needs its paperwork checked. Day to day you'll mostly meet assays already flattened: on sample tables, strip logs, and exports.