Lol. It takes about 12 minutes per sample. Samples are examined with an aided eye (sometimes), they can be split, crushed, rifle split if big, pulverized, ZRF'ed, and digested if warranted. Factor in locating and recat/logging and it could take longer like 30 mins assuming they are semi organized. At 30 samples per hole the numbers can add up. In addition, where warranted the samples might got to a lecko for sulfer analysis or have some AA done on them.

Average sample time given a small lab with 2 crushers and 2 pulverizers, 1 lecko and say a Rigaku table top xrf, 2 standard gas hoods 1 stove, 1 aa with 64 stations and your process time with labeling and inventory on a LIMS is going to run you about 10 mins per sample. This will give you CU, AU, AG and sulfur. If iron is present it can be calculated.

6000 samples someone said. so 60,000 lab mins. 100 man days. And that's just lab time.