Business Prospecting

Tvliftshop.com - Visible Bedroom TV Lift

2012-02-09T20:35:00.000-08:00

TV Lift for the Greatness Do you think that your bedroom is not really great? Do you find that the condition has been boring enough for you? Well, if you find such condition, you need to make sure that you can decorate the condition of the bedroom. Such thing is very important by considering the fact that you use your bedroom to find relaxation.

Of course, you might think that you need to spend big amount of money to deal with the decoration. However, you do not need to spend such big amount of money if you want to give nice atmosphere to your bedroom. All you need to do is to give some kind of accessories to your bedroom. Take the example of the TV lift. Perhaps, you might not be familiar enough with such matter. Well, you can assume that this kind of accessory will make it possible for you to move your TV just the way you want it to be.

Imagine that your TV can appear from the cupboard by using the remote. Then, you can also move the TV to adjust your sitting position easily. That is the things that can be done by using the television lift. By having this matter, you can have nice condition of your bedroom and you do not need to spend big amount of money. Order it from Tvliftshop.com and you can have nice bedroom instantly.

How to Get Unsecured Business Loans

2012-02-07T10:06:00.000-08:00

For people who are not familiar with loan, perhaps they think that loan is only for those who have good credit, good financial statement and collateral as well. However, there are many lenders who are willing to give unsecured personal loans even for those who are not running a business. If you are still working with certain amount of income each month, live in the certain state and has been 18 years old, so you can get easy access to get this loan. Of course, you also have same chance to access loans for small businesses. Why not try starting new small business while you are still working as an employee? Your personal loan money can be used for business purposes.

If you would like to know how to get a small business loan, so you should go to EZUnsecured.com. You can get various lenders with different business loan rates, length of payment, term and condition. Make sure that you have strong willing to run new business. So, when you receive loan money, you don’t change your mind by using loan money for travelling abroad. Well, business loan can be your good source for staring new business if your parents can’t help you or even bank refuses your application. Many banks or financial institution will refuse to give loan to young business owner since they are afraid of bankruptcy that might happen before 2 years. This Company gives flexibility to access the various lender and you have free will to deal with the best one.

Unsecured Business Loans will be good and bad according to your management to use loan money. Be careful to spend loan money since it can be useful or harm your financial cash flow if you are not wise to spend it. Take loan according to your needs today!

Gold Occurrences in Central America

2012-01-15T13:58:00.000-08:00

Map of Central America

With the exception of Belize gold is found throughout Central America to the extent that the area has become a Mecca for gold seekers. The big attraction is the chain of volcanoes that reaches from one end to the other going north to south. Central America is also one of the youngest landmasses on Earth that hardly exceeds 5 million years old. The lode gold deposits are all epithermal deposits in nature where the gold is deposited in concentric rings around the volcanoes in the many shear zones in the area.

Recently the level of gold exploration in Central America has increased because the region is not well explored and one might say it is under explored. At the present time ounce of gold carries a high price tag combined with the laws of all the nations in Central America that for the most part are pro-mining and exploration.

The very formation of Central America as an island arc of volcanic islands that was in filled by sediments from both North and South America would be enough to form gold deposits. Most of the lode deposits found in Central America are epithermal in nature associated with volcanism forming in fault and shear zones. The volcanism is formed by the Cocos Plate being subducted beneath the area west of Central America just offshore.

Several gold mining companies started exploring the area during the late 1990s in the long isthmus that connects the America’s finding the whole of Central America is spotted with high grade gold deposits. Central America may prove to be one of the premier gold bearing areas on earth. Success prospecting Central America will prove to be more successful for those companies that strive for community support among the inhabitants rather then the old time methods of dig and run leaving a mess behind. This will also help them to get exploration permits leading to the development of a mine if it is economically feasible.

Central America is about the size of the Yukon Territory of Canada but contains several countries all of which except one have gold deposits. The one exception is Belize that does not contain any reported gold deposits. Throughout most of the area are mining laes similar to those found in Canada meaning overall they are friendly to the mining community.

Now that the price of gold is hovering around US$1,600.00 per ounce has caused a significant number of grassroots discoveries of gold throughout the region. Central America is a virtual treasure chest of minerals, more then gold is found there. One nation, Panama is estimated to hold the largest copper deposit in the whole world. It is not only a miner’s paradise but one for investors too.

Gold Occurrences in El Salvador

2012-01-10T20:35:00.000-08:00

Coat of Arms of El Salvador

There are several volcanoes located in El Salvador with most of them found in the western part of the country and have all erupted during the Holocene. It takes volcanic activity to create gold deposits, and that is exactly what has happened in El Salvador. The heat from the volcanoes has driven the gold out in concentric circles around the volcanoes and is deposited when the temperature of the water drops below 300^oC to about 200^oC. Quartz is also deposited at about the same range of temperature so they are often deposited at the same time.

Most of the lode gold found in El Salvador and Central America in general are in the form of epithermal deposits associated with the many volcanoes in the region. These volcanoes are products of the subduction zone just off the west coast of Central America. Many of these deposits grade to copper with depth making it possible that the largest copper deposits can also be found in the area.

Although there are little references to placer gold in the country it is reported to be found in most rivers and streams flowing from the interior as placer deposits in the bottom of the valleys. Like other placer deposits it is found associated with the gravel deposits associated with flowing water.

First there was a gold rush in El Salvador that quickly was followed by the lawyers. Although gold in plenty has been found in the country its large scale mining is being opposed by community groups, locals and environmentalists. It seems their concern is mainly the distribution of wealth between the miners and the local population. As we speak this is a battle moving its way through the courts!

Pacific Rim Mining has a project named El Dorado that is 65 km east of the capital of San Salvador that is presently in an advanced stage of exploration indicating there is 1.4 million ounces of proven resources available and a potential of much more that is the target for the present exploration program.

Mining and exploration is governed by the 1996 law that was last amended in 2001.

This law is administered by the Ministry of Economy’s Department of Hydrocarbons and Mines governs the granting of exploration license as well as exploitation concessions. This allows the applicant the right to produce and sell valuable products recovered from natural resources within the area of the concession. An Environmental Impact Study (EIS) has to be approved by the Salvadoran Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources as well as satisfying a number of other conditions. Once it is granted the law requires that mine construction be started within the next twelve months in accordance with the conditions on the final permit.

Closing a gold mine

2012-01-02T21:12:00.000-08:00

An open pit mine.

The formal name for closing a gold mine is mine closure that occurs when the ore extracting activities at the gold mine have ceased, and ushers in the final decommissioning of the mine and its reclamation. This usually entails laying off most of the workers that can have a very significant impact on the community around the mine and the local economy. This is the time that the end of the life of a mine when the majority of reclamation work is completed so as to make the land safe and useful for other purposes again.

In many of the countries where mining activity is prevalent much of the closure planning has not yet been formalized leading to a floor of unintended consequences that have the potential of becoming a sovereign risk if not well managed.

Closure planning is a development in mine closure that continues throughout the life of the mine that usually starts before the mine is ever in production and is an integral part of the mines business plan. The closure plan undergoes periodic updates throughout the time of active mining, and incorporates a final decommissioning plan for the mine. The Australian model for my enclosure is also followed in many other countries with this model being the standard.

Most miners follow a progressive reclamation plants throughout the life of the mine that reduces the reclamation burden on the mine when it is finally closed.

There are two types of mines that require closure one of them is the open pit mine it is usually closed by a special type of explosive round is called a quarry closure shot. This is done by drilling a regular shot pattern only the shot holes are progressively shorter to further from the quarry wall that you get. What you are left with is a graded pattern of shot rock that leaves a slope down from the former quarry walls. This slope is often covered with topsoil and planted.

An underground mine is treated differently where in many cases a large concrete plug about 3 feet thick is placed over the shaft effectively limiting access to the mine. Some underground mines are capped using large metal grates that are usually used on deep level shafts that allows airflow to occur through the deep tunnels that helps prevent subsidence.

Older mines typically used wood beams, a foot or more thick, under loose rock or dirt as caps. Eventually the wood rots and sinkholes might develop. These mines are typically recapped with concrete, steel plates, expanding foam, or a combination.

Steel plates are used primarily on horizontal shafts, but are used on vertical shafts occasionally. Doors are added if access is needed. Holes are cut into the plate to allow for drainage as well as for a bat entrance.

Expanding foam is used mainly with vertical shafts where the use of the shaft is no longer needed. It forms a plug 6 feet or more thick. A 4-to-6-inch (100 to 150 mm) pipe through the plug allows for pressure equalization as well as drainage, or even as a bat entrance.

Closure planning has two different components. On-site planning is mostly about environmental rehabilitation and returning the landform to a reasonable condition. Off-mine closure is about loss of livelihood, which is a more complex issue.^[5] An element of this is generating an offset against the high cost of environmental remediation issues, which in certain cases can exceed the value of the mineral that was mined originally. ^[6]

The Importance of a Business Plan in Gold Mining

2012-01-02T12:29:00.000-08:00

A collection of classical capitals.

One of the most important document in gold mining or exploration, any mining or any business ventures is a good business plan that acts not only as a road map as to how the operations will proceed, but is also necessary to get capital for the operations of the business. Yes, gold mining in this sense is like any other business whether it is selling shoelaces or building rocket ships all business have to have a roadmap to their success.

If you are not familiar with a business plan it is a formal statement of the goals of your business. It also includes the reasons why you believe those goals are achievable and how you expect they can be achieved, and the way you are going to reach these goals. The business plan may also contain information about the personalities that will be conducting the operations necessary to achieve these goals.

A well-written business plan will also target whatever changes that may occur as to how the public perceives the business and its branding by the customer, client, taxpayer or the larger community as a whole. When your operations assume a major change such as the gold turning the copper at depth as often happens. It can be also used for planning new ventures or additional minds. Most principals or investors require a 3 to 5 year business plan since investors will look for their annual return of investment in that length of time.

There is a great deal of information about business plans on the Internet that can be found by Googling the phrase business plan. In addition there are also many, many templates that are available online where literally all you have to do is fill in the blanks and your business plan is written. Using one of these blanks is very helpful, however the best way to write an effective business plan is by scratch. At the very least by Googling business plan you can quickly gather a great deal of information as to how to write one.

No matter whether you use a pre-existing template or start writing your business plan from scratch you will quickly discover how much smoother everything goes for you. The business plan will not only direct you in operating the mine have but also make raising money far easier. There is not any operation on earth that does not benefit from a well written business plan.

Gold Occurrences in Panama

2011-12-29T10:09:00.000-08:00

The Coat of Arms of Panama shows plenty of evidence about the gold mining history of the country.

The Isthmus of Panama is what joins North America to South America, and is the home of the Panama Canal joining the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Not surprisingly Panama also contains extensive gold deposits that have only recently been exploited. Although gold was known in the earliest days it wasn’t until the early 1990s that several groups of miners who were mainly Canadians got several concessions from the Panamanian government to exploit the mineral resources of the Republic of Panama. At the time because of lack of infrastructure there was no sense in mining Panama’s mineral wealth. This all changed when terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City on 9/11/2001 by ramming the buildings with airplanes. This started the price of gold spiraling upwards from a price that was pegged at $300/oz in March 2001 to more then $1,500 today. Gold isn’t the only source of mineral wealth in the country that may prove to be the largest copper deposits found anywhere on the planet. By 2004 the money started pouring in to Panama for exploration of mineral resources, and it is still pouring into the country.

The Isthmus of Panama was formed about three million years ago when huge amounts of sediments from both North and South America filled in the gaps between the islands of an island arc forming a solid strip of land that finally joined the two continents together. Many scientists feel this was one of the most important events that has occurred in the past 60 million years. Because it filled the gap between the Americas it completely changed the pattern of oceanic circulation that gave us the world’s present climates by forcing warm water northwards thereby heating the whole northern hemisphere. It also created a landbridge that allowed the plants and animals from the Americas to mingle.

Panama and the Panama Canal, The high mountains to the south of the canal are the home of much of the gold in the country, but gold is found throughout the country wherever there are volcanic mountains NASA

The islands were for the most part volcanic like the modern Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean Sea. These volcanoes are represented today by the string of volcanoes in Panama. It is these volcanoes inland from the subduction zone just off the west coast of Panama where the Cocos Plate is being subducted beneath Panama that keeps these remnants of volcanic islands still active today it also provides the heat engine that allowed the many mineral deposits to form.

Gold panning lessons. Public Domain

There are extensive deposits of placer gold in Panama with one of them in the southern part of the country more then 100 miles long along the banks of a river. Because of its tropical nature the placer deposits in the country have been little exploited although some artisanal native miners have been working these deposits for years.

Gold in Black Shale, Metal Extraction using Specially Cultivated Bacteria

2011-12-28T20:08:00.000-08:00

A settling pond in front of a heap leaching pile. USGS

Gold and other metals are found in black shale usually in quantities too small to mine economically using the old methods, but that is all changed with the introduction of a process called bioextraction that is closely related to bioremediation. The author has actually use this technique in his environmental consulting business to remediate industrial sites that were contaminated with heavy metals. This particular method of metal extraction makes use of local bacteria that are already present in the soils around the area of black shale.

A cultivated bacteria used to heap leach black shale. NOAA

This method of using the natural bacteria is completelygreen allowing the extraction of metals without soil contamination. Of using a solution of bacteria for extracting metals from black shale was developed in the mid-2,000s in Finland on another poly metallic black shale. The process is extremely inexpensive to operate and can be fine-tuned to extract different metals from the shale. The process itself is based upon heap leaching the shale after it has been ground up and piled in its better then sprinkled with the bacteria bearing solution. The pregnant bacteria solution is then pumped into a central point where the metal is extracted then the solution is recycled back into the heap leaching process.

Black shales are noted for their poly metallic mineraldeposits all over the world. One such black shale is the Marcellus shale found in the eastern United States that is now being exploited for its natural gas content. In the process of extracting the gas in the shale is Hydro Fracked so that after the gas is recovered a solution of the metal extraction bacteria could be pumped down the hole and allowed to extract any metals that are left in the shale.

Besides allowing the extraction of gold this process allows the recovery of virtually any other metal found associated with Black shales including rare earth elements. For just gold mining this process would obviate the use of cyanide or mercury for the extraction of gold. By fine tuning the process any number of other metals can be extracted. Since the source of the bacteria is from the same area as the mine is causing this to be a completely green process.

This is only of a number of other processes that can be adapted from existing metal remediation used in the environmental remediation practice. Once the proper bacteria are extracted from the environment and cultured there is no limit to the different types of metals that can be extracted using this process.

Gold Occurrences in Costa Rica

2011-12-24T16:05:00.000-08:00

Coat of Arms of Costa Rica

The very name Costa Rica in English means "Rich Coast" a country that has become the home to many expatriate Americans because of its stable government. What makes it favorable to so many gold hunters is the chain of volcanoes reaching from north to south through the country. There are several gold bearing regions found throughout the country associated with its volcanic nature.

The only producer in Costa Rico is presently “Inversiones Valle Columbia” that holds an exploitation concession right in the center of the historic Las Juntas mining district. There are two veins LaPita and the Olga that have been developed into mines feeding the mill that supplied ore running from 10 grams to 20 grams per ton that were supplying up to 80 tons of ore per day.

Volcan Arenal in Costa Rica
Photo by Matthius Prinke

The owner of Invesions Valle Columbia, Luis Canto bought the Rio Chiquito mine from Corporacion Minerales Laguna SA in 2002 that has stated resources of almost 177,000 tons. It’s his intention to prove and exploit this deposit that averages 11.18 g/t Au and 21.2 g/t Ag.

There is even a district in Costa Rico called the Montes de Oro, literally Mountains of Gold about 70 km west of the countries capital San Jose close to the town of Miramar overlooking the Pacific Ocean. This mine owned by Glencairn is producing up to 60,000 oz of gold per year. The property has produced gold off and on for more then a century.

At the Crucitas project Vannessa Ventures has acquired one of the premier gold producing areas in Costa Rico consisting of 10 concessions that cover 176 km² where they have already spent over US$34 million in exploration and development. Crucitas is ready for mine development containing measured, indicated and inferred resources of more then 2.4 million ounces of gold.

A long tradition of placer gold mining has affected the local population of the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rico. This goldfield that extends across three-quarters of the Peninsula has even managed to produce some large nuggets. In this area you can at least pan colors in your distinctive gold pan that was developed by the local populace for their mining conditions.

There are several concessions of placer gold for sale in Costa Rica including one of 10 km² in southwestern Costa Rica containing at least 7,500 kg of gold as stated by the Costa Rican Department of Geology.

This is similar to the subduction zone off the West Coast of Costa Rica.

A long subduction zone can be found off the west coast of Costa Rica that is the cause of so much volcanic activity in the country that supplies the “Heat Engine” necessary to build deposits of gold. This is not only applicable to Costa Rica, but anywhere on Earth where similar conditions are to be found. The whole west coast of the Americas have subduction zones laying just off their west coasts producing gold deposits from superheated water associated with the volcanism.

Gold Mines of the Future

2011-12-23T16:47:00.000-08:00

An underground waterfalls inside a gold mine. Crusier

Future gold mines and mines in general haven’t changed much except incrementally in more then a century, a situation that has to change as mines keep getting deeper and hotter. Theoretically it is possible to reach depths of 33,000 feet using existing technology, but at these depths human miners are not able to work efficiently calling for other technologies not depending on man. There have been many advances in the scienceof robotics that may fill some of these needs, but other technologies are going to be needed too. The engineering department of Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario is one of many organizations working on the problem of developing the Future Mine work is progressing at both the university level and in the R&D labs of mining companies.

One of the first things to vanish from mines in the future is the headframe that has been a hallmark of underground mines for centuries. The mine hoist will no longer be needed as in most mines the hoist and cables will be replaced with a Maglevsystem similar to that used today on Maglev railroads. There is no reason why the Maglev system won’t work vertically as well as horizontally.

Explosives that have been used in mines since the 17^th Century are another thing that is apt to be replaced by a system developed by Noranda Mines that makes use of high energy electricity that is stored in powerful condensers where the power is channeled into a drill hole filled with water that is ionized by having the electrical charge funneled into a thin copper wire between to steel rods. The resulting explosion caused by the ionized water is extremely powerful capable of pulverizing rock, and is far safer to use then conventional explosives.

The Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) has already been successfully used for boring many tunnels throughout the world, one place where it has been used is in New York City where it has cut the tunnels for the New York Water Tunnel #3 that is 28 feet in diameter and many miles long. Variations of this system can be used to replace the system of drill and shoot that is presently used. The use of the TBM allows very small suzes some as small as a beer can used to follow small veins in the rock that are overlooked during today’s mining techniques.

One thing that is certain as man goes further into the Crust of the Earth in his quest for minerals man himself is apt to be left behind replaced by robots. Human miners will become redundant. One visionary even sees robots the size of ants being used in future mines that would spat a bacteria charged solution onto ore bearing rock that would dissolve the metals that then would be recovered from the resulting solution. Things they are achanging!

Strategic Alliances

2011-12-19T20:40:00.000-08:00

This is a group of companies providing goods and services to the mining and exploration industry. If you would like more information about our strategic allies they are listed below.

G&O Diamond Drilling Contractors is based out of Hay Lake, Alberta, Canada covers North America has over 40 years experience. Their crews are trained to provide not only core drilling, but many of the other skills needed in modern mining practices. You can contact them through the following link: http://coredrilling.ca/

The Sonic Goldblaster 100

Goldlands is a company in Bellingham, Washington that makes Big Boys Toys for large scale placer mining up to 150 tons per hour. You can contact them through the following link: www.goldlands.com

The World’s Deepest Gold Mine is cooled with Slush

2011-12-18T18:01:00.000-08:00

A South African goldmine similar to the one in this article.
Photo by Babakathy

There is a certain amount of argument as to what is the world's deepest gold mine, but there is no doubt it is found in the Witwatersrand of South Africa. The latest contender for the title of world's deepest mine is the Mponeng mine of the West Wits district of the Witwatersrand. The mine's name is derived from the Sotho word for “Look at me.” At 13,000 feet this presently holds the record as the worlds deepest mine. This record does not only apply to gold but any other product such as uranium that is mined from the deepest recesses of the earth.

This mine is so deep the only way it can be cooled to the highest temperature allowed by South African law of 83°F at the mine face is by refrigeration that makes a mixture of ice and water that we call slush. There is several refrigeration units deep in the bowels of the mine made by IDE Industries headquartered in Israel that make slush as part of a scheme to make fresh water from sea water . The slush is held in readiness in underground reservoirs until it is piped to the working face of the mine. After it has done its job of cooling the mine the warm water is pumped back to the surface where it originally came from by large electric pumps using tremendous amounts of electricity where it is allowed to cool off.

The mine contains 230 miles of shafts and tunnels that take the workers as much as 90 minutes to reach the working face of the mine allowing only five hours per shift at the working face. The shaft is split into two sections causing the workers to have to walk to the second shaft before they can continue their journey to the bottom of the mine. Most of the trip continues on rails that carry men, equipment and ore. The final part of the journey is made in low tunnels that cause the men to walk hunched over with their miners lamps to brush the ceiling of the tunnels. Some of the time they have to go down narrow stairways leading into the depths of the mine.

At present this mine is the deepest on earth, but it is possible to extend the depth of a mine to 33,000 feet with most of the work being done by robots. This mine makes it too all apparent that no real changes have taken place in deep mining for more then 100 years, a situation that must change if we are going to continue extracting minerals from the depths of the earth.

We welcome comments on this subject!

You don’t want to meet this guy while prospecting; a 15 foot diamondback rattlesnake

2011-12-17T15:13:00.000-08:00

The world's largest diamondback rattlesnake. Look at the sheriff's leg for a size comparison .

At fifteen feet this might be a new world’s record for the largest poisonous snake in the world. This nightmarish monster was recently caught in St. Johns County, Florida by the St. Johns Sheriffs Department. This snake was so big it looked more like a boa constrictor or python then a rattlesnake. This snake weighed around 170 pounds and is capable of swallowing a two year old child or one of your pets. The only poisonous snakes in the world that even approach this monster in size are the Bushmaster of Central and Northern South America or the King Cobra of Southern Asia. This snake is capable of striking for a distance of seven and a half feet with venom so powerful one bite is capable of killing 50 men. A bite from this snake is like having two quarter inch curved screwdrivers driven into your flesh. This huge diamondback was caught near the St. Augustine Outlet in a new subdivision of KB homes just south of Jacksonville, Florida.

The fangs of the largest rattlesnake. The blade on the knife is four inches long.

Rattlesnakes of this size are unusual, but it was in 2009 that one almost this big was caught in Alabama that was fourteen feet long, and weighed over 100 pounds. There are surly other monsters like this lurking around in the southeastern United States. The Eastern Diamondback is found as far north as North Carolina, and as far west as the Mississippi River. The snake is usually not as long averaging from 3.5 to 5.5 feet long although in one study an average length of 5.6 feet was found. According to the Guinness Book of Records as of 2009 the longest eastern diamondback on record was 7.6 feet. it is estimated this snake had been living since the late 1980s making you wonder if more of them are around, what they have been eating. how many others are there around like them and where are their offsprings or kin.

These snakes habitat is dry upland grassy areas although at times they can be found on dry hammocks in coastal wetlands. The author once encountered a whole hammock full of them in the Everglades. The eastern diamondback is an excellent swimmer so they may be encountered in swamps, lakes and rivers.

Another view of the largest rattlesnake showing a clear view of its head.

You may be wondering why this was included in Gold Mining & Prospecting this is because its habitat includes parts of the eastern goldbelt that extends through the southeast from Maryland to Alabama. This is the scene of the first Goldrush in the United States and because of recent exploration activity is becoming one of the hottest areas in North America for finding gold. You wouldn’t want to meet one of these guys on a prospecting trip because they could completely ruin your day. Even the little ones could, and there are at least three other poisonous snakes in the southeast United States, the Copperhead, the Coral Snake and the Cotton Mouth. Look out!

Followup: Further research on this story reveals it isn't true. Although the rattlesnake was a large specimen of its species what gave it its apparent size was because the photographer taking the pictures was closer to the snake then the sheriff was. Even if it wasn't 15 feet long a diamondback rattlesnake is still the largest and most poisonous snake in North America and should be respected.

In a further followup with Molly Davis a spokesperson with the St. John's County, Florida Sheriffs Department although the snake wasn't 15 feet long is was however a giant specimen nonetheless of an Eastern Diamondback. The snake hunter who wasn't allowed to keep live specimens killed the rattlesnake because of its proximity to a housing development. It was in some shrubbery at the entrance to the development where the snake was found.

This was an extremely dangerous animal with any member of the rattlesnake demanding much respect. It should be remembered that the newly born members of the rattlesnake clan are the most poisonous.

Building Stone Quarry for Sale in Massachusetts.

2011-12-04T01:40:00.000-08:00

Massachusetts in red.

For sale by owner a building stone quarry in the central Berkshires of Massachusetts. This quarry is a turnkey operation that is ready to go complete with permits. It produces flagstones and veneer from the famous Goshen stone a hard mica-schist that splits naturally into flat sheets of stone.

For further information contact John Carter at: geotekllc@gmail.com

Gold Occurrences in Nicaragua

2011-12-01T11:37:00.000-08:00

Coat of Arms of Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the isthmus of Central America, and the second largest country in Central America after Hondas. Like the rest of Central America the country is amply endowed with gold and other minerals. The country is often referred to as the land of lakes and volcanoes. The presence of so many volcanoes is a sure sign that gold can be found throughout the country as both placer and lode deposits. A line of volcanoes runs from north to south; some of them are extinct and others are active. There are volcanoes having huge smoking mouths while others were blown away by violent eruptions leaving behind lakes that now occupy their calderas.

Gold mining is not an especially important component of Nicaragua’s economy although there are a few mines that have been producing gold since the 1940s. This producer id the Limon Mine belonging to Glencairn Gold Corporation. During a recent year this mine produced about 48,000 ounces of gold. Altogether this mine has produced approximately 2.7 million ounces of gold in the period from 1941 and ending in 1979. This was during the period when the mine was under the control of Noranda, a Canadian Mining Company. The property is still in production.

A recent discovery of epithermal gold has been made in the southeastern part of the country by Nuevo Guinea a project of Radius Gold. This is in an area of rolling farmland that is served by good roads from Managua making the extraction of gold an easy process. More work by Radius on its 100% owned San Pedro discovery that is about 200 km west of Managua in an area of epithermal quartz veins located anomalous high readings of gold in stream sediments that has returned values that range from a trace ti as high as 6.8 g/t of gold. There are several other occurrences of gold in Nicaragua that are undergoing exploration. Some of these projects are the El Pavon, Rio Luna, El Limon, La Libertad and La India.

Nicaragua like most of the rest of Central America has been built up from a subduction zone that lies just off the west coast of the area. It most probably began as an island arc with the islands through volcanic action becoming one continuous strip of land. It was this volcanic action that caused the gold to be deposited in epithermal deposits. Many times the hot gold bearing water found a place to be deposited in fault and shear zones. Many of these deposits are apt to be traced over kilometers in length and width.

At one point in the development of the area the subduction zone split giving rise to the Caribbean Islands that in the more recent Lesser Antilles are mainly volcanic, the Greater Antilles are all known to be gold bearing, but it must be remembered these islands share a common ancestry with Central America.

Gold Occurrences in Guatemala

2011-11-28T18:05:00.000-08:00

Coat of Arms

Guatemala is the northern most country in Central America adjoining Mexico on its southern border. Gold mining has been practiced in Guatemala since before the days of the Spaniards by the Maya Indians, and is still being practiced today.. the country is mounted on the north by Mexico, on the northeast by Belize and on the South by Honduras. The Caribbean Sea lies to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the West.

Some of the core rocks of Guatemala were laid down around 370 million years ago that have since been overlaid by tertiary volcanism many of these mountains contain iron, copper, lead, zinc and traces pf gold and silver that are still being mined today. The Tertiary period when dinosaurs roamed the Earth was when this massive layer of volcanic rocks were laid down with their accompanying mineral deposits. The eruptions did not stop during the Tertiary there are volcanoes still erupting today in Guatemala.

Volcan Flores one of the many volcanoes of Guatemala
Photo by Rick Wunderman (Smithsonian Museum)

As recently as 23,000 years a very large eruption occurred for me a call barrel that is now occupied by Lake Atitlan in the Guatemalan highlands. One recent eruption of Mt. Santa Maria in 1902 was one of the most violent eruptions of the 20^th Century. As recently en eruption of the volcano Pacaya in September 2010 caused 1,800 people to flee their homes as the volcano spewed ash, lava and rocks over the surrounding countryside. The eruption was also blamed for at least three deaths.

It is a well known fact that gold is often found in the vicinity of former volcanic eruption's in deposit great amounts of gold by the action of hot water. Even today there are many hot springs to be found in Guatemala in it which could still be bearing gold laden waters. An especially good place to look for gold is around ancient volcanoes especially those that have created calderas. Gold is not usually found in the center of a caldera but rather at its edges. Many times these gold deposit a company magnetic highs that are found at the outer edges of a caldera eruption.

A great deal of Guatemala is covered by tropical rain forest combined with the rugged terrain and it's prospecting in the country very difficult although not impossible. This condition prevails through all of Central America. In Guatemala there are both placer and lode deposits of gold. Gold can be found in most of the rivers and streams flowing down from the highlands of the country. Because of ground cover finding lode gold is more difficult although not impossible if you use modern geophysical instruments.

Gold is often accompanied by deposit so magnetite that is sensitive to a flux gate magnetometer. There are other advanced methods of exploring for gold including one very accurate means that involves taking soil samples, and subjecting the samples to analysis by an atomic absorption spectrometer.

It is possible that the area encompassed by Central America could well prove to be one of the most mineral rich areas in the world.

Gold Occurrences in Honduras

2011-11-26T15:01:00.000-08:00

Coat of Arms for Honduras. Note the crossed hammers and chisels along with the mine entrances in the lower left corner.

Honduras is the largest and most rugged country in Central America. It was little explored until the 1960s because of the dense jungle, steep slopes and deep ravines. Lack of roads was another contributing factor to the lack of exploration. Volcanic activity is another. Volcanism is a rather recent occurrence in Honduras like the other countries of Central America having started as recently as 11 million years ago and still continues today. It is this volcanic activity that carried gold and other polymetallic ore deposits in its wake.

As part of the volcanic arc of Central America, Honduras contains many volcanoes both active and extinct; it is this volcanic activity that brought with it the deposits of gold and other minerals that are found here today. The area including Honduras has undergone a considerable amount of activity associated with subduction zones that were building volcanic arcs Honduras was part of one of several island arcs originally. The country was finally accreted to southern Mexico, but there was still a gap between North and South America. This gap was only closed within the past five million years when Panama was formed allowing a land bridge between the Americas.

Gold isn't the only thing found in Honduras this precious opal came from the Gracis O Dios mine there.
Photo by Rob Lavinsky

Although the situation has improved Honduras to this day is largely unexplored presenting plenty of opportunities for exploration for gold that is present on both placer and lode deposits. There are several gold mines in Honduras where mining is mainly carried out by foreign interests that principally use the heap leaching process with cyanide. The nature of the mines also lowers the water table. Cyanide can be neutralized with a solution of laundry bleach or Clorox.

In some cases whole villages were relocated to new sites that although they provided housing for the inhabitants they failed to provide plots of land where crops could be raised or animals pastured. The findings of an investigatory group were published in the paper, “The Price of Gold: Gold Mining and Human Rights Violations in Honduras.” The result was made by presenting the Honduran Government with the needs of improving the regulatory needs as pertained to gold mining.

Due to its mainly volcanic origin there is plenty of gold in Honduras waiting to be discovered because although exploration conditions improved during the 1960s there is still plenty of territory that hasn’t been explored yet. Gold is still there for the taking!

Gold Occurrences in Greenland

2011-11-22T11:13:00.000-08:00

Greenland suffers from a split personality because geologically it is part of North America, but politically it is part of Europe; to be specific Denmark. Greenland geologically is part of the Canadian Shield although in many places it has been reworked. In the southwest corner is found some of the oldest rock on earth is taking the form of gneiss that has been intruded by a younger magma that provided the radiometric date. It is this younger magma from which a date of about 4 billion years ago has been derived. The gneiss itself is much older.

Like the rest of the Canadian Shield, Greenland is blessed with greenstone belts that are always associated with gold. The east coast of Greenland lies just to the west of the IapetusSuture Zone making it similar to western Connecticut and Eastern New York. Northern Ireland, Scotland and the Scandinavian Peninsula split off the eastern coast of Greenland during the period when the Atlantic Ocean was opening making a strip along the east coast similar to the eastern United States. Some of the rocks in Scotland are identical to the Catskill Mountains in New York composed of what is called the Old Red Sandstone in Scotland.

A geological team at work in Greenland
Photo by Erik

Although much of Greenland hasn’t been explored as it is covered with up to two miles of ice enough has been explored so there are some active gold mines found on the Island. The island could become the next mining frontier an idea that drew over 150 people to a meeting about the potential for mineral exploration in Greenland in Toronto. Greenland itself is one indication about how the soaring prices for metals attracts miners to the out-of-the-way places that under usual conditions are normally overlooked. Greenland is an extension of the Canadian Shield that contains many potential mineral deposits. Just one deposit of cryolite sparked the whole aluminum industry during the late 19^th Century.

Greenland underwent two episodes of the breakup of a continent as recently as the Eocene about 40 million years ago and displays both extensional terrain and extensive volcanism just the place to look for gold. Right across the middle of the island there are extensive flows of lava that cover the surface of the land beneath the ice. One of these breakups formed the Davis Channel between Greenland and Canada the other involved the formation of the Atlantic Ocean that gave birth to Ireland, Scotland and Scandinavia. The ancient suture zone was just off the coast of present day Greenland.

Gold isn’t the only precious commodity found on Greenland; True North Gems has also found extensive deposits of rubies in southwestern Greenland. There are also many other things then gold that are being mined on the island right now. Exploration is ongoing for other commodities. One of these is diamonds, although none have been discovered yet geologically there is no reason why they haven’t, and plenty of reasons why they should.

Although Greenland is off the beaten path it isn’t so far away that it can’t be in what is called in international trade a part of the Hudson – Rhine Axis of Trade.

Gold Occurrences in Mexico

2011-11-20T10:21:00.000-08:00

The Coat of Arms of Mexico

There is an old Mexican saying that it takes a silver mine to make a gold mine. Mexico is blessed with an abundance of both metals. My first introduction to Mexican gold was when a group of us tried to acquire the San Pedro Mine in San Luis de Potasi. We couldn’t make a deal for this mine that had been worked since the time of the Aztecs, but it still contained around 12 million tons of low grade ore similar to that of the Carlin Trend in Nevada.

Mexico is within the Cordilleras that go all the way from northern Alaska to Tierra del Fuego in southern Argentina. Throughout these mountains there are abundant mineral deposits some of them have been worked since before the Americas were discovered by Columbus in 1492. Exploration is still ongoing throughout the Cordilleras to this day with many gold and silver mines being developed.

The best description of mineral occurrences in Mexico including gold is that Mexico is a virtual treasure chest with an abundance of minerals hardly surpassed anywhere on earth. Some of the mines in Mexico have been continuously worked for over 500 years. In one place there is virtually a mountain of silver that has been worked since the days of the Aztecs or before. In another place the workers in a mine stumbled upon a cavity in the rock where they discovered selenite crystals the size of tree trunks. It is so hot in this cavity you have to wear air conditioned suits to enter.

Poughkite an ore of gold and selenium from the Monctzuma Mine in Mexico
Photo by Rob Lavinsky

There are two mountain ranges running for most of the length of the country named the Sierra Madre Oriental and Occidental with the Valley of Mexico between them. In many places these mountains are volcanic in nature with the minerals found in them coming from the volcanism.

Lode deposits of gold and bedrock deposits of other minerals are abundant in Mexico, but that is not all. Throughout Mexico there are many placer deposits of gold found in most of the rivers and streams, and because of the lack of glaciation there are also saprolitic deposits where the bedrock has been turned into clay leaving the lode deposits of gold and quartz behind in place waiting to be mined.

Many mining companies are actively exploring for more gold deposits in Mexico throughout the country, but there are also mines like the San Pedro Mine that has been worked since the days of the Aztecs. The potential for finding gold and other valuable mineral deposits in Mexico remains very high.

Gold Occurrences in Nunavut

2011-11-17T11:32:00.000-08:00

Nunavut is shown in red.

Eastern Nunavut is dominated by the mountains of the Arctic Cordillera a range of volcanic mountains that extends southwards from Ellsmere Island to the Torngat Mountains of northern Labrador and Quebec. At 8,583 feet (2.616 meters) Barbeau Peak is considered to be the highest point on the east coast of North America. Many of these mountains are of volcanic origin, and some of them still display cones. It is the inhospitable nature of the Canadian Archipelago combined with the volcanic nature of these mountains that we must assume there is plenty of gold that hasn’t been discovered yet.

In essence the Arctic Cordillera are reworked rocks of the Canadian Shield and in many respects are similar to the Appalachians although the orogeny that formed them is much younger. The area is fairly heavily intruded with volcanics that are associated with the orogeny. To the west of these mountains Nunavut is composed of older rocks belonging to the Canadian Shield. There are a series of greenstone belts that are found throughout the Canadian Shield including those found in Nunavut. It is in these rocks that much of the gold in

Canada

has been found.

The Meadowbank Gold Mine under construction.
Photo by Agrico-Eagle Mining

Nunavut’s first gold mine opened in 2010 operated by Agnico-Eagle it is the first gold mine in the Territory and the first gold mine to become operational here. The mine is called the Meadowlake Mine that opened in June 2010. Exploration for other mines is proceeding. There have been plenty of problems this mine has faced ranging from difficulty in off-loading freighters, leaky dikes, getting permits and delays in completing an airport capable of handling jets. With these problems it has been estimated that production at this mine is apt to be more then CN$350 per ounce.

At one time in 1999 there were two operational mines in Nunavut both of these mines produced lead-zinc. One of these mines had the title of being the most northerly mine in the world. This was the Polaris Mine on Little Churchill Island. The Nanisivik near the village of the same name produced silver along with the production of lead-zinc. Both mines are now closed.

There is an active exploration industry and several other mines are in the process of being opened. Prospecting in Nunavut is expensive but there are grants made available from the territory of $8,000 if you are a serious prospector. The territory also conducts classes for the local population in a program that travels from community to another conducting night and field classes for the people living there. These classes have been conducted for several years, and it was a local prospector who took the classes that found a deposit of gemstones in 2001 that he sold to a mining company.

Mt Aasgard in Nunavut is one example of the terrain you will encounter. It is located on Baffin Island

Unlike other parts of

Canada

, Nunavut has not been well mapped so there is plenty of opportunity for prospectors to find valuable mineral deposits. One of the things that you have to be careful of is that it takes about 100 prospects before you can develop a single mine.

Gold Occurrences in the Northwest Territory of Canada

2011-11-15T11:52:00.000-08:00

The NWT of Canada

Some of the oldest rocks on Earth are the Acasta Gneiss found in the Northwest Territory of Canada. The rock itself is metamorphosed sedimentary rock that is far older then its radiometric date of 3.8 billion years. A zircon found in this rock has been dated as 4.03 billion years old. These rocks of the Acasta formation are by far the oldest rocks discovered in North America, and were originally laid down in the Hadean era.

A fragment of the Acasta Gneiss on display in the Natural History Museum in Vienna.
Photo by Pedro Alexandrade

Unlike the Yukon that lies to the west of the NWT that has no exposed rock of the Canadian Shield most of the territory is composed of rocks of the shield. These rocks display plenty of greenstone belts notably the Yellowknife Greenstone Belt near Great Slave Lake.

Gold was discovered in the territory in 1898, but active mining did not commence until the mid 1930s in the area around Yellowknife. The opportunities for additional exploration and prospecting in the territory abound. There are other valuable mineral deposits that are being worked in the territory including uranium and the recent discoveries of diamonds have resulted from the opening of diamond mines.

Yellowknife, NWT in the mid 20th century.
Photo by YK Times

A vast amount of information is available through the Northwest Territory’s Geoscience Office in Yellowknife. Another source of information is the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) in Toronto, Ontario. The Northern Miner in Toronto is a weekly newspaper covering the mining industry worldwide including the Northwest Territory.

Prospecting for Gold the Northwest Territories of Canada along with many other valuable minerals including copper, diamonds and uranium is a viable occupation. Parts of the territory along the Arctic coast and on the islands in the Arctic Ocean contain gas and oil. A few years ago a geologist inadvertently published the locations of test wells on Ellsmere Island and received a proper wigging for his efforts. The territory depends on mining for most of its economy. Today however the emphasis is on diamonds rather then gold.

A significant gold discovery has recently been announced at the REN gold site. The gold was discovered in a seven kilometer long iron formation. Gold is often associated with iron especially with the ore granular magnetite. Some of the grab samples of ore collected have as much as 198 g/t of gold. In follow-up drilling more gold was found in the host rocks adjacent to the gold rich body of iron ore. The area around Yellowknife is dominated by the Yellowknife Greenstone Belt that has been the scene of several past and present gold mines.

Over the years there have been a number of gold mines found in the area around Yellowknife the territory’s capitol. This city was originally settled as a gold camp and became the capitol later. The diamond mining industry is now centered Yellowknife although the actual mines are located to the Northeast of the city around the Lac de Gras area.

Gold Occurrences in the Yukon Territory

2011-11-13T13:02:00.000-08:00

The Tintina Gold Belt goes from northern British Columbia to Alaska for 1,200 kilometers. USGS

You could say it all began with the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898, but the history of gold in the Yukon goes back to the early traders and trappers who first found gold in the territory. Much of this gold was in placer deposits. Placer is a Spanish word meaning a place where gold was dug from the earth mainly from sand & gravel deposits where the gold was concentrated.

The southwest corner of the Yukon is within the Tintina Gold Belt a great arc that extends from northern British Columbia throughout the Yukon and ends in the Pacific Ocean just above Anchorage, Alaska. The Tintina is about 1,200 kilometers long and 200 kilometers wide. Many of the earliest gold discoveries in the Yukon were placer deposits, and even today large quantities of placer gold are produced. During the Klondike Gold Rush many of the miners passed through the Yukon on their way to the gold fields of the Klondike in Alaska without ever sampling the area in the Yukon through which they passed. If they had the gold rush might just as well been called the “Yukon Gold Rush.”

This part of North America escaped the extensive bouts of continental glaciation that covered much of the northern hemisphere for the past million years allowing the placer deposits that had formed for millions of years to remain in place; the placers were destroyed by the glaciers in other parts of northern north America. When the glaciers came a good part of the Yukon was part of Baringia an arid land that joined Asia to North America when the sea level was four hundred feet lower then it is now.

For many years geologists and prospectors thought the gold in the Yukon was all placer gold eroded from formations of rock that no longer existed, but in recent years a number of hard rock mines have been put into production. Many of these lode gold mines are associated with the mineral scheelite, an ore of tungsten in the form of calcium tungstate. One hard rock mine is actually called the Scheelite Dome Mine (VSE:LAO) because of the amount of scheelite it produces.

The Yukon Territories are shown in red.

Most of the river systems in the Yukon produce placer gold, and lode gold can be found related to intrusions of magma into the country rock. There are plenty of placer operations found in the territory, and an increasing awareness of the lode gold potential of the Yukon.

Gold Panning in Bonanza Creek in the Yukon.
Photo by Janothird

The Benefits of prospecting during Cold Weather

2011-11-11T19:01:00.000-08:00

A snowy owl in flight during cold weather, one of the best times for prospecting.

The greatest benefit of prospecting during cold weather is there aren't any black flies around to gnaw on your bones. There are also many other benefits, probably the second most important is there aren't any mosquitoes around either. These two critters can make prospecting during the warmer month’s sheer hell. Another critter that is missing during the cold months is snakes. Many snakes are harmless, but the onesyou are apt to encounter while prospecting may not all be. It is the venomous snakes like copperheads, coral snakes, cottonmouths and rattlesnakes that can raise hob within any prospecting expedition. For the most part even bears go into hibernation during the coldest months of the year.

That leaves some other critters that might remotely be a bother, but only members of the deer family and the mountain lion are truly dangerous. Usually deer try to avoid contact with humans, but during rutting season in the late fall male deer have been known to attack humans. I once had a late fall encounter with a bull moose, a member of the deer family that could have been dangerous, but the moose didn’t like the smell of my companion that I’d been after for two weeks to take a bath. The other dangerous animal is the mountain lion; they look upon humans as lunch. Most mountain lions are confined to really wild areas in the western United States or the Florida Everglades. They are very rare, but I observed one in Connecticut about thirty years ago. According to the Department of Environmental Protection in Connecticut there weren’t any mountain lions in the state. This spring one was killed on the Merritt Parkway, and another was observed by a canine control officer in northern Connecticut.

The perfect thing to go prospecting in during the winter. Vehicles like this are used extensively for prospecting in Canada and other cold places. This is a prototype that was built in Montana during the 1970s.
Photo by Gyre

The greatest benefit of cold weather prospecting is you can see so much further when the trees are bare. One of the greatest problems facing a prospector is being able to find bedrock. No leaves or other vegetation make it so much easier. If you are panning for gold in a stream you can still do so just by wearing rubber gloves. When I was prospecting in the cold weather I used to wear the bright red gloves that were covered with rubber, and were insulated. They kept the cold water out, and the heat in.

It’s also much easier to get around in the bush or muskeg when the ground is frozen; in fact in some places where you want to prospect can only be approached during cold weather. You don’t want to get into muskeg during warm weather, you’ll still be there.

Even if you are not out prospecting it is still a good time to plan your next expedition by studying the literature about the area where you intend prospecting, and laying your plans. Remember there are plenty of other minerals worth looking for besides gold.

Gold Occurrences in British Columbia

2011-11-10T05:28:00.000-08:00

It is near Mt. Robeson where the Fraser River rises that was the scene of a gold rush in 1859. Tobi87

It was in Yale, British Columbia on the banks of the Fraser River where I first learned about British Columbia gold there were several flour sized flakes gold in the bottom of my gold pan. From what I understand this flour sized gold is characteristic of the Fraser River. For the benefit of the reading audience it takes approximately 40,000 of these to weigh a troy ounce (31.1 g). At the time there was a terrific thunder shower coming up, and I worked the pan out in about two minutes leaving the proprietor of the gold panning site completely mystified because he had already seen the Connecticut greenhorn could work so fast, he already seen the plates on my car. He didn't know I had been a prospector most of my life. The Fraser River was the site of a gold rush in 1859, and there is still gold to be found in the Fraser River system. There are also jade boulders found with the gold in the river.

Yale, British Columbia during the Freaser River Gold Rush in 1859

British Columbia also contains the southern terminus of the Tintina Gold Belt in the northern part of the province. This appears to be the largest gold belt in the world since it is traceable all the way from northern British Columbia, through the southwest corner of the Yukon Territory and sweeping all the way across Alaska for a distance of 1200 km where it finally ends in the Pacific Ocean just above Anchorage, Alaska.

The first discovery of gold by Whiteman was at Gold Harbor on the west coast of Moresby Island near the Haida village of Tasa in 1850 where it was discovered on Mitchell Inlet, an arm of Gold Harbor. This discovery touched off a brief gold rush in 1851. This led to the area being declared the Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands. The British government didn’t want the islands to be overrun by American Miners even though the gold deposits proved to be superficial in nature, and there are stories about the American miners being harassed by the local Haida warriors. Later the area became the site of a modern mine for iron rather then gold.

Like all the beaches in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada The beaches do contain flour gold in payable amounts sometimes covering the beaches with enough gold so they attract the locals trying to get as much of this gold as possible before the next tide washes it away until the next big storm that may wash up enough gold to be noticeable again. In the same area the mountains of the coastal range including the British Columbia Batholith have had several producing gold mines and numerous showings of gold.

There is another gold producing area on the western slopes of the Rockies and the rivers and streams draining them. This area was made famous during the Fraser River Gold Rush and the later Caribou Gold Rush.

Gold is not the only source of mineral wealth in the province because it also contains world class deposits of jade that are mined both in-situ and as boulders of jade found in numerous rivers. The area around Cache Creek has produced both gold and jade. British Columbia is also noted for producing large quantities of copper, lead and silver.

British Columbia has vast deposits of mineral wealth throughout its length and breadth with many deposits yet to be discovered. There are numerous mines that are accessible only by air especially in the northern part of the province.

Gold Occurrences in Alberta

2011-11-08T04:53:00.000-08:00

Gold country in Alberta

Although there are over 200 reported instances of lode gold occurring in Alberta there are several places where it might be found. In the very northeast corner of Alberta is a small fragment of the Canadian Shield that might contain the right geology for the occurrence of gold. North of the 55 degree line is a mass of Paleozoic and Mesozoic sediments that have been intruded with volcanics, and are highly faulted and sheared from earth movements. These sediments are quite apt to contain gold. Another place where gold is apt to be found is in the tailings of the Athabasca Oil Sands.

The area underlain by the Precambrian rocks in northeastern Alberta has more then 200 known occurrences of gold. Some of these deposits produce the potential into being developed into significant mines. These deposits are mainly in sulfide hosted deposits with the gold being associated with other metals. Many of these deposits are found in hydrothermal veins associated with iron mineralization. Many of these deposits especially those found in the Athbasca basin were emplaced within the past 1.5 billion years. Many of these deposits are in Phanarozoic deposits especially those whose host rock is in black organic rich shale. Many of these deposits are to be found in the Alberta portion of the Rocky Mountains. There are many places where by sampling the soil it is possible to find anomalously high concentrations of gold. These anomalies indicate the possible presence of viable gold deposits lurking underground.

The Athabasca Tar Sands a possible source of placer gold.

Placer deposits in the province are found in rocks ranging from the Cretaceous to modern. A good place to look is in conglomerate, or in stream gravel. Deposits of fine placer gold are found along the Saskatchewan River as it flows through Edmonton. On warm lunch hours one can see executives with their pants rolled up panning for gold.

This kind of gold is usually found in fine particles that are known as flour gold. The color of this gold ranging from the pale yellow to a coppery red depending upon what other metals are alloyed with the gold. The yellowish specks of gold are alloyed with silver forming a compound called electrum. The reddish colored gold is alloyed with copper. Sometimes the gold that is discovered and placer deposits is coated with iron or manganese oxides that have to be removed with acid. Gold itself is not affected by any acid except act the region a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids. Fools gold differs from real gold because it is brittle and crushes easily.

There are several different river systems in the province that do contain placer gold among them are the North Saskatchewan, Red Deer, McLeod, Athabasca, and the peace River systems.

How a Gold mine is Created

2011-10-28T11:38:00.000-07:00

An open pit gold mine.
Photo by Patrick Huber

A recent question that was posed to the author on www.allexperts.com was how a gold mine came into being. The questioner realized that a gold mine is usually large, but how they came into being just eluded him. He thought spelunkers, cave explorers, discovered the gold minerals while exploring the cave. A few working gold mines probably were discovered this way. Most gold mines are purpose dug excavations with three types of gold mines that are recognized. The people that develop a gold mine are called gold mine developers. Although it is nothing more then a large construction job there are enough differences so sometimes this is a specialty in the construction industry.

A gold nugget from a placer mine.
Photo by Rob Lavinsky

The first of these gold mines is the placer gold mine where through the process of weathering the valuable gold minerals are released from the bedrock that encloses them. Most of these deposits find their way through the process of soil creep to an ocean or river where they are found in the bedload mixed with many other lighter gold minerals. Another type of gold mineral deposit found is the result of weathering in place. The deposits are usually found in the tropics between 32 degrees north and south of the equator. Many of these are found associated with quartz that remains in place while the other gold minerals are turned to clay around them. The gold and other gold minerals stay more or less in place waiting to be gold mined. A placer gold mine is usually limited to gold production although there are exceptions to the rule other placer gold mines also produce tin and rare earth gold minerals.

Entrance to a gold mine adit in Japan.
Photo by PHGCOM

Other gold mines are located in bedrock, and usually are called lode gold mines if they are for mining gold. Basically there are two types open cast that is nothing other then a large hole in the surface of the earth. The other type of bedrock is one underground. Gold mines of this sort are further subdivided by their way of entrance. One type of gold mine has a shaft going into the ground with tunnels reaching out from the bottom of the shaft. Some of these gold mines have several layers reaching out from a central shaft. Other gold mines of this sort have more then one shaft entering the gold mine. The other type of bedrock gold mine uses an “Adit” that is a tunnel going more or less horizontal to the surface of the ground. It costs less to build a gold mine with an adit then one with a shaft.

Headframe of the Oryx gold mine in South Africa.
Photo by Babakathy

Before any gold mine is created there must be lots of preliminary work done first. Placer gold mines are called “poor mans gold mines” because the preliminary work is often kept to a minimum. The work can be done by one man or a small workforce. Bedrock gold mines are for more capital intensive then a placer gold mine sometimes for a truly large gold mine it exceeds 1 billion dollars before any ore is extracted.

Gold found in Roads and Sidewalks

2011-10-27T15:32:00.000-07:00

A small gold nugget that can be found in sidewalk cracks.
Photo by Rob Lavinsky

The last place you would ever expect to find gold is around roads and sidewalks, but according to our spies it turns out that these are excellent places to search for placer gold. The sidewalk or road all have cracks, and a surface that is ideal for catching gold. There may not be much, but over time the cracks can collect quite a bit of gold particles. Another place where gold will collect is on the side of roads or sidewalks. It has been reported to us that at least one man makes a living from the gold he collects from sidewalk cracks in New York City.

A good place to look for gold is at the sides of roads, or cracks in the pavement/
Aron C's Photos

This doesn’t only work in New York, but can work anywhere’s there are roads and sidewalks. Obviously it will work better in places where there are existing gold mines like in Timmins, Ontario or Washington, DC that is in the middle of the Appalachian Gold Belt. Just think about that panning for gold in the middle of our nation’s capitol.

Gold in cracks is going to require some different tools then the average gold miner would think about, although many of them can be found in the average kitchen like a broom and dust pan. You can’t pan for gold in the middle of the road so you’ll need a plastic bad with a zip top to hold your concentrate until you get home. Other handy tools include a paint brush, a small carpenter’s level, a magnifying glass and some kind of metal hook to get the gold bearing sand out of the cracks. A battery powered vacuum cleaner is a nice addition, but not necessary.

Gold lurks in the cracks found in sidewalks.
Photo by Christopher Beland

The carpenter’s level is so you can check the slopes to see which way the gold has traveled. The broom is for sweeping the sidewalk; the brush is for getting into the cracks. The vacuum cleaner can be used in place or the broom or brush. The dustpan is for collecting the dirt from the road or sidewalk. The plastic bag is to put what you have collected into before taking it home where it is finished.

The major source of this gold it from what is carried onto the sidewalk from peoples feet. It takes several years for the accumulation of gold to build up enough to be worthwhile. On roads the gold comes from road sand in colder places, or from gold that is carried onto the road by tires. Most of this gold migrates to the side of the road by the action of runoff, where it is found right next to the side of the road.

There are many other odd places where gold can be found especially if you are prospecting around old ghost towns. Some of the best places to look is where there were former salons or bordellos. Just remember the old saying; gold is where you find it!

Money Dries-Up for Juniors

2011-10-25T17:42:00.000-07:00

The NYSE
Photo by Luigi Novi

Even in the best of times junior mining and metal companies have a hard time finding investors and as of October 2011 it’s becoming a hard-scrabble existence to find any at all. These are times when the whole world is suffering from a king sized case of economic blahs, where it seems one calamity after another is leaping out of the woodwork to make investors nervous about where they put their money. Darn little of it is available for investing in mining causing many miners to take some really creative ways of getting the investors to part with their money.

The trouble started last March when

Japan

was struck with a devastating tsunami. It was then that investors started pinching their money giving junior miners a tough row to how for their money. The market started to slow down then, and by October had ground to a dead halt. Junior miners are the first ones to take a hit in the slowed down economy where they have traditionally gotten their financing.

Cash money!
Photo by Revisorweb

According to one investor money has been flowing away from the juniors that wont change until the financial panic affecting the whole globe reduces slightly. In the third quarter of this year the market had slowed down finally coming to a dead stop after the 1^st and 2^nd quarters where the cash flow was slowing down.

Mining Stock from Tombstone, Arizona in 1883

The real problem is whether we are sliding back into a recession or not. That is the $64 question. One mining company investigating a gold/silver deposit in Africa has promised its investors more then just stock they’ve also promised each investor two ingots of silver each weighing ten pounds. If you need to raise more money you are going to have lots of trouble. Investors are more selective about who gets the money. Many of the deals being cut now are for just enough money to limp along. Many investors are just maintaining the status quo for the next three to six months. It is expected that the future is going to bring with it some relatively expensive financing. This doesn’t mean there is no money, but if you had to raise a few million dollars, you’ll have to work for it.

As it was put by one investor, “Lots of investors have cash but the mentality right now is: why should I buy this week, if next week I can get it much cheaper.”

Discovery of Gold sparks mini Gold Rush in southeast United States

2011-10-23T18:56:00.000-07:00

Crystalline gold USGS

According to a report from Reuters recently a Canadian Mining Company along with a tiny town in South Carolina are leading the charge to what could become a modern gold rush in the southeastern United States. The company from Canada is Romarco Minerals Inc. that has reopened the old gold mine at Kershaw, S.C. and by 2014 should be pouring its first gold bar. The name of the mine is the Haile Mine. The author originally became aware of this exploration project at the PDAC Show in Toronto in 2008.

The Haile mine once environmental studies and the permitting process is completed will be the first modern gold mine is the Mississippi River since the Kennecott Minerals Mine that was in Ridgeway, South Carolina in 1999. Based on proven gold reserves that were found in the samples it is estimated that 3.1 million ounces of gold still remains in the ground at Haile. It is estimated this gold mine will produce an average of 150,000 ounces of gold for the next five years.

The slate belt that winds its way through the southern Appalachians from Maryland to Alabama was the site of the first gold rush in America before gold was discovered in California in 1848. It is interesting to note that this Slate belt north all the way to Quebec. Gold is been reported that sparked a gold rush in Columbia County and adjoining parts of Saratoga County, New York, and western Vermont in the northern extension of the slate belt. It's one of the most significant gold belts in the United States and sparked one of our first gold rushes in the early 1800s.

This is the first time that the southern gold belt has been explored using modern methods, an area that many people have forgotten how significant gold production was in the past. Most gold mines in the area were discovered by following placer deposits to their source. The glacier that destroyed the placer deposits in the northern United States and Canada has acted to prevent the discovery of gold deposits in the northern extension of the Slate belt.

Finding the gold left it daily has sparked renewed interest throughout the Slate belt in the southeastern United States. The gold found here is embedded in microscopic flecks in the volcanic rock in the so-called Carolina Slate Belt that extends from Alabama through northern Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia and Maryland. In early October another Canadian mining company from Vancouver, Revolution Resources started investigating other old gold mines in the slate belt including the first mine, the Reed Mine in North Carolina.

During the period after the discovery of gold in North Carolina and the Civil War there were hundreds of gold mines scattered throughout the piedmont region of the southern states. Many of these gold mines were destroyed by the Union forces during the Civil War, others remained in production until 1942 when the federal government closed all the gold mines in the United States. There was even the working gold mine at the Great Falls of the Potomac River just upstream from Washington DC that was included in the shutdown of all the mines. Very few of these mines ever reopened and for the most part have been forgotten.

Gold Occurrences in Saskatchewan

2011-10-23T05:46:00.000-07:00

Many of the people living in Saskatchewan don’t realize that the province is the largest producer of Uranium in Canada but also has or had some world class gold deposits that are found in the northern part of the province. The starting point for all this mining activity is the city of Saskatoon where many of these mining companies are headquartered. The potential of the province where the surface geology has barely been scratched is vast with many mineral deposits yet to be found.

Rumors of gold being found by trappers on the North Saskatchewan River started filtering out in 1859. These rumors claimed there were one ounce and larger nuggets being found were prevalent during the building of North Battleford. Flour gold can still be recovered by panning the river from Churchill west to Edmonton Alberta and beyond. Some stories even tell of seeing businessmen with their pants rolled up panning gold from the river during lunch hour around Edmonton Alberta.

Gold was first discovered in Saskatchewan near Prince Albert in 1859 in the North Saskatchewan River. The province began producing gold in small quantities in the early 1900s from placer deposits along the North Saskatchewan River and its tributaries. Today there five gold mines have been brought into production since 1987 with additional production coming from base metal mines mainly from around Flin Flon. There are an additional 200 gold occurrences in the province that are not being worked presently.

During the 1980 although gold had been produced since the early 1900s marked the first time that there had been a significant gold exploration program had been used in the province. Most of these occurrences are in the Precambrian shield area except for some small placer deposits draining off the Canadian Shield.

According to the Saskatchewan Geological Survey (SGS) there are still large areas in the Province that haven’t been explored especially in the Canadian Shield. To search for Saskatchewan occurrences of gold, use the Saskatchewan Mineral Deposits Index searchable database, or the Geological Atlas of Saskatchewan. Or open the Mineral Resource Map of Saskatchewan.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Saskatchewan-map.png

It has been pointed out to me by one of my Canadian prospectors whose mother was born in Battleford, SK that they mined placer gold along the Saskatchewan River flowing between Battleford and North Battleford. Some of the miners reported they were able to recover as much as an ounce a day.

Why there is little or no Placer Gold in the Northern US or Canada

2011-10-13T15:38:00.000-07:00

The answer is simple; the action of the glacier destroyed the placer gold deposits. It is hard to realize that the last period of continental glaciation lasted until about 12,500 years ago when the glaciers started to recede. The northern U.S. and Canada were covered with ice sheets that were up to two miles thick. It was the grinding action of this glacier that destroyed most placer deposits of gold.

Two exceptions to this continental glaciation can be found in Alaska and Northeastern Siberia. This whole area was largely ice free due to its arid climate during the period of continental glaciation. In Alaska this left the Tintina Gold Belt largely uncovered giving rise to two of the greatest gold rushes of modern times; the Klondike and the Fairbanks rushes. In Siberia extensive placer deposits of gold were found in the Kolyma River Basin that gave rise to the slave labor camps that were known as the Gulag. This area was above water during the glaciations and was known as Berengaria a continental landmass of continental proportions. Berengaria provided a land bridge between Asia and North America allowing the migration of animals and mankind from one to another.

Due to the grinding action in a large glacier it is doubtful that little or no gold in the northern U.S. had its origin in Canada. To be reduced to fine powder gold it wouldn’t have to travel too far in a glacier with a top figure of around 300 kilometers.

The thin placer deposits found in New England are more likely have been derived from lode deposits buried under the covering of glacial till that for the most part is around 4 meters deep and can range to well over 100 meters. We have personally observed lode gold deposits in place making it virtually possible that if you are finding placer deposits larger then gold dust that it has its origin in buried lode deposits.

In New England the glacier traveled roughly northwest to southeast. On one occasion we observed a gold nugget from a stream in western Connecticut that weighed about a pound. This nugget was barely rounded and was at least one-half quartz, a clear indication it hadn’t traveled too far from its source. For that reason we would like to have reports of any placer gold found in New England larger then flour gold. You can reach us at geotekllc@gmail.com.

John Angus Carter School of Prospecting: Module #1

2011-10-11T12:55:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce our new online modules about prospecting that are capable of being used over the entire world to learn how to be an effective prospector and miner of gold and other valuable minerals including gemstones. There is going to be a series of these modules offered at the reasonable cost of US$10.00 per module. The first of these modules is, “What is Placer Gold and where it’s Found.

In addition to our prospectors school we are also available as a speaker within a radius of 100 miles around Barkhamsted Connecticut including Boston and New York City on gold mining and prospecting.

All the modules will be presented in Microsoft PowerPoint and will be emailed to you as attachments. They will be opened in PowerPoint that is a regular part of MS Office or in Open Office Presentation.

The first of the modules is about finding placer gold that is sometimes called, “Poor man’s gold” and the environments where it’s found. The module is well illustrated with accompanying text. Like all modules its price is US$10.00. The modules can be paid for with credit card, money order or via PayPal. The module will be emailed to you within 24 hours of receipt.

If you want to mail us a money order for your module the address is

John Carter

11 Meeting House Rd.

Barkhamsted, CT 06063

Email geotekllc@gmail.com

You can order the modules from this list:

What’s that in the bottom of your gold pan?

2011-10-07T10:39:00.000-07:00

Iron oxide that has been removed from gold concentrate with a magnet.
Photo by Peter Kuiper

Gold isn’t the only thing that ends up in your gold pan, although with a density of 19.1 it is one of the minerals that might be staring up at you. Platinum or platinum group metals (PGM) having a density almost matching gold is another. The rest of the odds and sods found with the rest of the black sands can range from a to z with zircon the last. They can be divided into several different classes with iron oxides being one of the most abundant,

Iron Oxides:

Magnetite: This is mixed with hematite on about a 50-50 ratio. Magnetite can be removed with a common magnet. This mineral is opaque black and is a member of the spinel group of minerals.

Hematite: This is the second most abundant mineral found in the bottom of a gold pan. Unlike magnetite is can’t be removed with an ordinary magnet, but is attracted to a rare earth magnet. Both magnets are used in the process or removing iron oxides from gold concentrate.

Iron bearing sulfides:

Pyrite: this is also called “fool’s gold” because it resembles gold but can be recognized by its rotten egg smell when tested with acid. Pyrite is brittle whereas gold is malleable.

Chalcopyrite: The same tests apply as to pyrite except chalcopyrite is somewhat redder then pyrite.

Arsenopyrite: this occurs as silver colored cubic crystals that look like pyrite. The simplest test is made by striking one of the crystals with a hammer when it emots a garlic smell.

Corundum:

This is aluminum oxide with a hardness of 9 on the Moh’s Scale that includes rubies and sapphires.

Diamond:

This is the hardest mineral of all with a hardness of 10 on the Moh’s Scale. It occurs as a bypyramidal crystal.

Uranium/Thorium:

There are several minerals present in stream heavies that contain these elements the most common are pitchblende, uranite, columbite/tantalite and allenite.

Tungsten:

The two common minerals of this element are wolframite and scheelite/ Both of these minerals fluoresce under ultraviolet light in a bluish/white glow.

PGMs:

Platinum group metals occur with gold on about a 5 to 1 ratio with more gold. They look like steel and like gold are quite malleable. They also leave a silver streak on a touchstone and are not affected by any acid except aqua regia a mixture made from 1 part of nitric acid and three parts of hydrochloric acid.

A zircon crystal
Photo by Rob Lavinsky

Zircons

These are the ore of zirconium that has many uses in modern technology.

Many of these minerals themselves are ores for their various elements. In many places they are actually mined from beach sands for their metal content in places like Australia of the Southeast United States using specialized equipment mainly the spiral classifier.

Generally, any mineral with a hardness of 7 on the Moh’s Scale and denser then 3 will wind up in the bottom of your gold pan. We did not include complete descriptions of these minerals because there are more then adequate descriptions available at www.mindat.org. :

year of the priest

2011-10-03T12:09:00.001-07:00

year of the priest

Gold Occurrences in Manitoba

2011-09-06T17:57:00.000-07:00

Gold in Quartz.
Photo by Rob Lavinsky

There are several gold mining companies that are presently exploring for gold or mining it in Manitoba. The provinces also been the site of many gold rushes the earliest of which occurred in the southeast corner of the province where the abutts Ontario. This part of the province is part of the Canadian Shield as well as northern Manitoba where there are several operating gold mines.

The southern part of the province as well as the other Prairie Provinces is covered with a sequence of glacial lake sediments that are derived from glacial Lake Agassiz about 10,000 years old. Today, Lake Winnipeg is just a small part of Lake Agassiz. The gold deposits in the province are mostly found north of the Lake District where you encounter the ancient rocks of the Canadian Shield. It is these rocks that contain gold except for a narrow area in the far eastern part of the province. Gold and other valuable minerals are founded this area of the Canadian Shield.

The southern portions of these three provinces are the home to oil and natural gas; they also contain minable amounts of gypsum, potash and salt because they were covered by an ancient sea that bisected North America from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. The Williston Basin extends into these provinces that also contain portions of the Bakken and Three Forks Formations.

Gold is found in northern Manitoba where rocks of the Canadian Shield are exposed. There is mining for gold and other metals in this part of the province. It isn’t only gold that they find. There are deposits of copper and nickel that are mined around the area around Flin Flon.

Manitoba is huge, it is almost as large as Texas so there is plenty of territory where you are able to prospect plus you have a provincial government that is quite friendly to the exploration and mining industries.

A good share of the exploration that is occurring in the province is between Rice Lake and Red Lake in Ontario. These two lakes are only 60 km apart and are both on the same continental fault. Although gold was discovered at Rice Lake in 1916 there were only a few mines that operated to the five hundred foot level. The deposits that have been discovered recently are all below the 1,000 feet.

Like a lot of other places in

Canada

it is often useful to prospect in the shadow of an existing mine. To find these old mines you are going to have to spend some time in the library researching them. Another good source of information about gold and other mineral localities is available from your provincial government.

Gold Occurrences in the Norumbega Fault System of the Northeast Coast of North America

2011-08-31T19:59:00.000-07:00

Nubble Light on Cape Neddick in York Maine. The light is on the Norumbega Fault as evidenced by the intrusions of gabbro that were emplaced during the late Cretaceous, and the earlier intrusions of grano-diorite. The light itself and the near shore are one of these intrusions found in the Kittery formation of southern Maine.
Photo by Michael Murphy

Like its better known cousin on the west coast the San Andreas Fault the Norumbega Fault System ranges along the coast from New Hampshire through Maine to the eastern coast of New Brunswick in Canada. This is a fault system that has been little known until recent decades although it has displayed a history of gold deposits since the late 1800s. Across the border in New Brunswick there has been a great deal of exploration recently with several extensive deposits of gold and other metals having been found. It has only been in recent years that it has started receiving the attention that has been accorded its southern relative the Brevard Zone, but the latter has been the scene of gold mining in the early 19^th century with some of the mines remaining open until the advent of World War II. A recent drilling program undertaken at one of these old mines in South Carolina has discovered proven reserves exceeding 3,000,000 ounces/ton of gold.

As part of a project undertaken by the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) in southwestern New Brunswick that is one of the most important gold occurrences in the Province as of 1999. Because of ground cover and lack of outcrops little is known of the geology of this district except it is hosted in volcanic and subvolcanic rocks that occur on Poplar Mountain. The gold in this deposit is accompanied with arsenopyrite.

A quartz vein in grano-diorite.
Photo by Walter Siegmond

This fault is the second largest fault system in the northern Appalachians exceeded by the Ordovician Fault System that under various names goes from Staten Island New York to Newfoundland where it enters the sea at Baie Verte NF. When the continents broke apart during the Jurassic the same fault continues through the British Isles and into the mountains of western Norway. Both of them mark the suture zones between land masses that were moved by tectonic forces.

Gold deposits and other metals have been discovered along both suture zones. The most active place at the present time is in New Brunswick. Another hotspot is in Wales in the British Isles. Little exploration has occurred for decades because of the difficulty in using ordinary exploration methods on this terrain due to heavy groundcover.

One of the best places to look for mineralization is where two faults join at right angles like the Lake Char and Honey Hill faults do in Connecticut. Both of these faults are a southern extension of the Norumbega Fault System. Another area of interest is where the City of Worchester MA is located. If you don’t think there is any gold in the Norumbega Fault System we recently found a deposit that assayed 5.9 on/ton gold and 1.1 oz/ton Platinum. I am not disclosing its location, so you can go and find your own.

The National Instrument 43-101 (the NI 43-101 or the NI

2011-08-30T05:54:00.000-07:00

This is a mineral resource scheme that is used in Canada for the public disclosure of information about mineral properties in Canada or by extension all over the world if securities in the companies promoting such properties are sold to the Canadian Public. In practice the NI 43-101 is a strict guideline about how companies whose stock is traded in Canada can disclose both scientific and technical information about mineral projects on bourses under the supervision of the Canadian Securities Administrators. The list includes the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) or the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V). Many of these companies are listed on other stock exchanges outside Canada, such as the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Australian Securities, the London Stock Exchange and all the exchanges headquartered in New York City.

There are many different types of reports that are covered including press releases, reports, the reporting of resources and reserves, presentations, oral comments and websites. Included in the classes of minerals covered are metalliferous deposits, precious metals, coal, bulk minerals, dimension stone, precious stones and mineral sands (placer deposits). For TSX listing purposes the NI 43-101 Technical Report would have to be accompanied by a report that is prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 specifications.

The NI 43-101 grew out of one of the biggest mining scams in history, the Bre-X (Busang) scandal to protect investors from mineral project disclosures that weren’t substantiated. The Bre-X scandal occurred when it was claimed there were over 200,000,000 ounces of gold in the deposit or 8% of the total world’s supply. It was all smoke and mirrors and a huge fraud. Its chief geologist committed suicide by jumping from a helicopter over the mine-site. The whole thing was a massive fraud with no gold. The core samples had been salted with gold, and after analysis in an independent lab many of them proved to be scrapings from jewelry. The investors lost their shirts!

Bluntly, the purpose of the NI 43-101 is to protect investors from misleading, erroneous or fraudulent information or claims relating to mineral properties is not published or promoted to investors on stock exchanges that are overseen by the Canadian Securities Authority. This includes stock issued by foreign corporations selling securities in Canada.

The NI 43-101 stipulates and codifies the form and content of a compliant report (i.e.; a report that complies with the Reporting Standard).

Prescribed disclosure within the National Instrument relates to;

§ All disclosure of scientific or technical data, including disclosure of a mineral resource or mineral reserve, concerning a mineral project on a property material to the issuer must be based upon information prepared by or under the supervision of a qualified person

§ What the National Instrument is to be used for, such as which types of mineral properties must be covered by a compliant report

§ Prescribes the terminology to be used to describe various features, both geologically and financially, within the report

§ Stipulates the type of information to be discussed and the technical data which must be portrayed, for various levels of reporting

§ Prescribes a list of approved Competent Persons, and the definition of Groups and Associations which may qualify to certify such a person as "Qualified"

§ Prescribes that a Qualified Person vouches for the accuracy and completeness of the contained information and the manner in which it is presented

§ Provides guidance on reporting Historical mineral resource estimates

Proscribed disclosure within the National Instrument precludes a company from reporting;

§ quantity, grade, or metal or mineral content of a deposit that has not been categorized as an inferred mineral resource, an indicated mineral resource, a measured mineral resource, a probable mineral reserve or a proven mineral reserve

§ results of an economic analysis that includes inferred mineral resources

§ allows for the potential grade, quantity and metal or mineral content of an exploration property, provided that a qualifying statement is made as to this being conceptual in nature

§ the term preliminary feasibility study, pre-feasibility study or feasibility study when referring to a study unless the study satisfies the criteria set out in the National Instrument

Orogenic Gold Deposits

2011-08-26T17:38:00.000-07:00

A typical specimen of orogenic gold from California
Photo by Raimond Spekking

Over the last century this class of gold deposit has been known by many different names like mesothermal gold deposits, metamorphic gold, gold-only, lode gold, shear-zone hosted, structurally controlled and a host of other names including greenstone-hosted and turbidite hosted deposits. To cover this mélange of varying names the term “Orogenic Gold” has been proposed by (Grove et al) in 1998 to cover all these varying terms. The reason for the change is to lower the confusion in terms since over the years they have changed causing a great deal of confusion in the scientific community, The reason for this confusion is because of the nature of these gold deposits. Many of these deposits are hosted in rocks that are intensely deformed and have been intruded from the effects of regional metamorphism or intrusion by magma.

The Highlands of New York and Southern New England. This is the type of terrane where gold might be expected.
Camerons Line runs through Connecticut to Staten Island NY. The black on the map represents an ancient suture zone where rocks of continental origin are in contact with sedimentary rocks that were metamorshosed to schist during the Taconic Orogeny. USGS

One of the important features of describing these gold deposits as orogenic gold deposits is because they can be found in any type of rock. Deposits of this nature can be found in metamorphic terranes of various ages that display variable degrees of deformation. The rocks that host gold deposits range from volcano-plutonic or clastic-greenschist facies commonly found in amphibolite or granulite. Deposits of this nature can be found in areas that have undergone regional metamorphism or where the immediate area has undergone local contact metamorphism from the intrusion of hot magma. Some of these deposits can be found in areas that at present represent areas of ancient major tectonic boundaries. An example of this is found in the north-east part of North America in the fault contact between continental rocks and deep sea rocks that is represented by a fault system undergoing several name changes, but locally is called “Cameron’s Line.” Most of these features are either compressional or transpressional tectonic settings.

You can find orogenic gold deposits in metamorphic terranes that display various degrees of deformation and various ages. The rock hosts are various environments that include volcano-plutonic and sedimentary-clastic terranes. The host rocks have usually been metamorphosed to greenschist facies. In some places locally the metamorphism can be amphibolite or granulite. Typically the gold deposits of this environment occur in regional crust scale environments. They usually display a brittle to ductile style of deformation. In many cases they are likely the present day expression of major ancient tectonic boundaries. The gold deposits can be found in any host rock.

These is a wide diversity of environments displayed that have strong structural controls in the gold deposits. Orebodies are found in all sizes and all scales. The morphology of these deposits is very variable including such diverse types as (1) brittle faults to ductile shear zones, (2) extensional fractures, stockworks and breccias and (3) fold hinges. Many of these Orebodies are composed of highly altered host rocks that have disseminated mineralization of fissure filled deposits. Many of these deposits can display a large vertical size exceeding 1 km in extent or more.

Gold Occurrences in New Zealand

2011-08-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

Map of New Zealand

There are several different types of gold deposit that are found in western New Zealand. Orogenic gold deposits are found in both fault and shear zones at all crustal levels in quartz veins found within and around brittle ductile transition zones.

The framework of New Zealand is controlled by two major faults the Wellington fault in North Island that terminates at the Bay of Plenty to the south coast, and the Alpine Fault that traverses South Island. New Zealand was rifted from Australia millions of year ago. There is a subduction zone to the east that today drives the volcanoes found on the west side of North Island. It is these volcanoes and earlier volcanism that has formed the gold deposits of the Islands.

Together these two faults represent a suture zone that runs the length of the islands. It is a well known fact that many metal deposits are found associated with suture zones, and that is true in New Zealand. Another mineral that is often found in suture zones is nephrite that is commonly called jade. Jade is found in areas of high pressure-low temperature metamorphism commonly in blue schist grade rocks.

These deposits originated ranging from 3 km to 12 km deep with hot water from 200^o to 400^oC. The gold deposits were brought to the surface by earth movements and erosion. The gold deposits are found mostly in regionally metamorphosed Paleozoic sediments that are found including those found at Golden Blocks in the northwest at Nelson, Reefton and Lyell. Other deposits are found at Preservation Inlet in Fiordland where gold bearing quartz veins are found dipping steeply and are generally striking parallel to the axes of folding in greywacke and argillite slate host rocks. Most of these veins are found to de discordant to the bedding.

The lodes in these locations are usually less then a meter wide and 200 meters long. The Birthday Reef at Blackwater, Reefton is the largest quartz vein found in the Paleozoic rocks. This vein averages about 60 cm wide and has been mined for a distance of 1070 m that extend to a depth of 830 m. There is also disseminated gold deposits that are next to the quartz lodes at Globe-Progress as well as others at the Reefton deposits.

There are also deposits of gold found in the Mesozoic rocks in the schist of the Otego and Marlborough as well as the greywacke found in the Southern Alps. Here the lodes are typically lensoidal in shape that are rarely more then a meter wide and are localized along single or multiple shear zones that are parallel that usually dip steeply and are discordant to the bedding of the country rocks. One exception is a lode vein found at McRaes where the deposits are found in the Hyde McRaes shear zone. These gold bearing veins have a strike of more 25 km.

Many of the gold deposits are found in saddle reef deposits similar to those found in eastern Australia where they occur as veins of quartz that approach near horizontal deposits of quartz found parallel to the bedding planes in turbidites ranging in age from Silurian to Devonian in age. A good example of this kind of deposit can be found at the Hill End Gold Field in New South Wales. This deposit was developed in regional metamorphism over a considerable length of time.

Gold deposits can be found the length of New Zealand, but are mostly found on the western side of the islands.

Gold Occurrences in Ontario

2011-08-24T12:39:00.000-07:00

Kidd Creek Mine in Timmins Ontario P199

The City of Timmins lies about 600 miles north of New York City it is common knowledge to most Americans that the Gold Rush happened in California in 1849, but a far larger gold rush occurred in Porcupine Ontario fifty years later. Porcupine was later incorporated into the Township of Timmins, but Porcupine still exists complete with a Tim Horton’s shop. One of the mines, the Dome Mine is still producing gold over a century later from a vast open-pit mine. The other mines are now closed, but in West Timmins they have recently discovered one of the largest gold deposits of the past century. It appears they haven’t written the last chapter in the book about Timmins Gold.

Most of the gold found in Ontario is found in the so-called Greenstone Belts the largest of which is the Abitibi reaching all the way from Wawa on Lake Superior into Quebec past Val D’or. From this one Greenstone Belt there are more then 160,000,000 ounces of gold that have been mined since its discovery in 1909. This is only one of several Greenstone Belts in the province that has produced gold.

Gold bearing belts are found in several other localities in Northern Ontario with other notable occurrences at Cochrane, Red Lake, Hemlo, Marathon and so many other places that prospecting for gold in Ontario is practically the same thing as carrying coals to Newcastle. Many of the VMS mines in Ontario produce gold as a byproduct. One example of this kind of deposit is found in the Kidd Creek Mine to the east of Timmins that was the site of a famous discovery in 1963. Most of the gold that has been found in Ontario is from hard-rock deposits.

Somebody has said that there has never been a single nugget of placer gold that has been found in the province. According to an open file report by the Ontario Geological Survey there appears to be a considerable amount of float gold present in the glacial drift of Ontario. It is probable that placer deposits have not had enough time to develop since the glacier melted. At any rate the report covers about two hundred pages listing all kinds of places where placer gold and indicator minerals for kimberlites have been found in Ontario. You can access this document online by going here.

According to the author’s prospecting friends in Ontario all the prospecting done in the province is in hard rock. With the amount of gold that has been discovered that really makes sense. It could be possible that what has worked in the past will work in the future. The possibility of placer mining has not happened because of the scarcity of alluvial gold. Although the Abitibi region of Ontario holds many lode mines, placer deposits are practically non-existent. The glaciers of the past million years took the gold laden soil south and deposited it in states across the American mid-west. These are from New York to Illinois.

Most of the gold of Ontario is found associated with the greenstone belts of the Abitibi and Superior Provinces that span the whole province from Manitoba to Quebec. It is thought that the gold was mobilized from the greenstones that are metamorphosed basalts by hot water. It was deposited in quartz veins that are often found near fault systems.

Another place that gold is found in Ontario is in beds of ancient conglomerate. An example of this type is a large piece of conglomerate on display on the lawn of the library in Timmins. This is probably an ancient placer deposit that has been fossilized. The stones in this piece show little or no sign of having been metamorphosed. It is an example of an Archean sedimentary rock.

Some of the other regions of Ontario that have produced gold is the area around Wawa and Marathon. The Western part of the province is also promising country to prospect. Prospecting in Ontario is not just limited to looking for gold. There is at least one active diamond mine in the James Bay Lowlands, as well as diamond bearing kimberlites found in several places in the province.

Diamonds are often found in the same rivers and streams that carry gold in their sand and gravel deposits. The largest diamond that was ever found in North America was found in a placer deposit.

There are plenty of other minerals that can be found in Ontario as well. These minerals might not be as glamorous as searching for gold, but in many ways they are more important in the modern world. Among them are copper, lead, zinc, nickel, iron, lithium, beryllium, niobium, tantalum and the rare earth elements. The platinum group metals are often found associated with copper, cobalt and nickel.

If there is anyplace where people have looked in Ontario for mineral wealth they have found it. The province maintains a very active geological survey that holds vast amounts of knowledge concerning the mineral wealth of Ontario.

The Government’s Chicanery with Gold

2011-08-18T10:46:00.000-07:00

A gold bar! www.realterm.de

With the price of gold reaching close to the $1,800 mark for a troy ounce many governments are looking at this high price as another way to grind their gold mining and owning citizens down more in their eternal lust for other people’s money. The scam works like this by government decree the only place where you can sell gold is to the government at a steeply discounted price. The next decree aims directly at the gold owner that states all gold must be sold to the government at their price that is far below its market value. The alternative to these schemes is where the government out-and-out seizes all the gold from its citizens.

So far this ploy hasn’t reached the larger countries, but it might not be a good idea to hold your breath before it does. Politicians in their eternal lust for new sources of funding know no bounds when it comes to your money. What makes it even worse is when they paint a picture of making their confiscatory policies to be in the common good. Well, the road to perdition is paved with good intentions. One of these good intentions is grabbing your gold.

In the State of California they recently closed the state to dredging for the next five years on some sort of trumped up charge that the closure was for the common good of the environment. They conveniently forgot there are people whose only source of income is from the gold they win from the streams in the state.

The seizing of gold isn’t beyond the pall of the US Government since they have already used this once in 1933 during the Great Depression. The did raise the price of gold to $35 per troy ounce, but they left it there for more then forty years finally allowing the price to float to market levels in 1974. They also completely disallowed gold mining during World War II, once again in the name of the common-good. Many of the mines that were closed then have never reopened.

No doubt there is going to be a lot of gold that is apt to return to the earth from whence it came so the government can’t get their hands on it. What’s next silver?

Gold Occurrences in Quebec

2011-08-17T18:07:00.000-07:00

Topographic Map of Quebec NASA

There are many gold deposits in Quebec many of which are being explored or developed into active gold mines at this moment. The province is also the eastern terminus of the Abitibi Gold Belt that begins in Wawa Ontario and supposedly ends at Val D’or Quebec. This is the second largest gold belt on earth only the Witwatersrand of South Africa is larger. Since it was first discovered in the early 1900s the Abitibi has produced more then 160 million troy ounces of gold, more then there is in Fort Knox.

There are several different parts of the province that contain gold either as native gold or associated with other metals of which copper is one. This is the case in the copper/gold mines around Chibougmau. There is a goldmine located about 60 km west of Chibougmau on Rt 113 in the Chapais Mining Camp. Further north these is mining exploration work being undertaken on the Taigus Road that goes from Radisson east to within a little more then 100 km from the Labrador border. There is also further exploration work being done in the far north of Quebec in the Ungava Bay Territory.

The Matagami Camp is another hotspot of activity for both gold mining and exploration with several mining and exploration examining the surrounding area for gold and other base metals. Exploration has reached the level where a surface mine is being opened near the town of Malartic between Val D’or and Rouyn-Noranda. This site is located in the Abitibi Gold Belt. A new find of Volcanogenic Massive Sulfides has been reported near Rouyn-Noranda.

A great deal of exploration and mining activity is found north of the St. Lawrence River especially in Archean aged rocks, but most of the placer activity is found south of the river especially in the rivers and streams that drain the Height of the Land on the Maine Border. Gold is found in the area centered on Sherbrooke and Thetford Mines as well as along the Chaudiere River. This is an interesting area because it also displays the same kind of chaotic geology as the rest of the area that is on the seaward side of the Brampton/Baie Verte fault where continental terrane and oceanic terrane collided during the Taconic Orogeny forming the Iapetus Suture Zone. This entire area in the Eastern Townships warrants further exploration for lode gold.

Gold Occurrences in New Brunswick

2011-08-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

Road Map of New Brunswick

Because New Brunswick shares an extremely complex geological past with the New England States further south combined with government policy to develop their mineral resources the province has many mines in both the Bathurst camp in northeastern New Brunswick and at the Mt. Pleasant Camp producing a wide variety of metals ranging from the base metals of copper, lead and zinc to the precious metals of gold and silver finishing with rare metals such as indium. At Mt. Pleasant with sizeable amounts of indium occur with deposits of tin, tungsten and molybdenum. The province also exports sizeable amounts of cadmium, bismuth and antimony to a worldwide market. In the southwest portion of the province there is extensive exploration for gold ongoing along the Clarence Stream.

By virtue of its diverse geological history New Brunswick has several different ways in which gold can occur. In northern New Brunswick gold is found in the form of epigenetic formations in quartz veins following major faults and shear zones. It is also found in gossens caused by the oxidation of volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposits of metals including pyrite and other iron sulfides.

One of the largest faults found in North America passes through Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Quebec just Missing New Brunswick by passing just to the north of the province. This fault continues south through New England finally vanishing into the Atlantic Ocean south of Staten Island, New York. Through its length it has several different names starting in New York it is called Cameron’s Line through Connecticut. At the Connecticut/Massachusetts Border it is renamed the Whitcomb Summit Fault through Vermont where it passes along the west shore of Lake Memphramagog where it enters Quebec where it is renamed the Brampton/Baie Verte Fault. When the continents divided during the Jurassic its northern end passed through the British Isles, and finally it went into the western edge of Norway where it finally vanishes. This fault in reality is where North America collided with an island arc that was far out in the Iapetus Ocean that preceded the Atlantic Ocean. In Greek Iapetus was the father of Atlantis for whom the Atlantic Ocean is named..

Like all suture zones its companion fault is interpreted to be a subduction zone with many metallogenic features that are remnants of the ancient ocean floor. Most of the mineral deposits are found on the oceanic side of the fault where there are many VMS deposits and altered oceanic crust containing gold and other metals. The altered oceanic crust is greenstone that is suspected to be the source rock for gold deposits. The Abitibi Gold Belt of Quebec and Ontario has a similar history, but is much older.

There are two major gold producing areas in New Brunswick when this in the northern part of the province and is related to the Bathurst mining district. The other is along the bay in Fundy in the southern part of the province that is called the Annidale Belt. New Brunswick is located at the northern end of the Appalachian Orogen and shares its convoluted geology with the rest of the Appalachian Oregen. The convoluted geology found in northern New Brunswick can be traced all the way to Staten Island NY.

Another place where placer gold has been found is in the Carboniferous rocks found in central New Brunswick that laps over into the province from Nova Scotia. One of the places where you might find gold is in the later conglomerates that are products of erosion that washed down from older mountains.

Gold Occurrences in Nova Scotia

2011-08-13T19:22:00.000-07:00

Nova Scotia gold in quartz
Photo by Rob Lavinsky

A gold province is contained in the Meguma Terrane of Nova Scotia that has been worked since the mid-19^th century. According to geologists that have studied the Meguma Terrane they have discovered over 300 gold occurrences are deposits found in the Cambro-Ordovician group of rocks found in southern Nova Scotia, Canada. This group of rocks consists of two formations that contain several classic examples of both turbidite and mesothermal veined gold deposits. The first formation is a lower sand dominated flysch that is billed as the Goldenville formation that has been subdivided into several mappable units that is leading to a better understanding of what stratigraphic constraints are imposed on gold mineralization. Detailed investigations of the stratigraphy are still ongoing in all the major gold producing areas. The gold deposits found in the Steve's Road-Beaverbank long with the Mt. Uniacke are the major gold producing formations in Nova Scotia having produced over 47,000,000 g of gold in the past.

In the gold producing areas the Meguma rocks display a variable deformation ranging from into upright gently to moderately double plunging folds having multiple cleavages. Gold in the Meguma is divided into three major groups: 1 hi-grade that averages up to 15 g per ton; 2 low-grade averaging from 0.5 to 4 g per ton and 3g per ton gold that is hosted in meta-sandstone. A combination of either two can also occur.

Most of the historical production of 47 million g has come from hi-grade deposits found less then 200 m from the surface. The majority of the gold has been produced from a variety of veins ranging from bedding concordant, to fissure and stockwork veins. The veins were emplaced by the migration of metamorphic fluids during the late Acadian Orogeny of the Devonian. The Meguma is a good example of

Most of the gold in the Meguma is found in two formations: the Halifax formation and the Goldenville formation where it occurs in quartz veins and is often associated with the mineral magnetite.

The erosion products of the Meguma are found in the coal measures of Nova Scotia where it might be found in conglomerate as fossilized placer deposits. Coal measures can be found in a belt extending roughly from New Glasgow under the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Glace Bay on Cape Breton Island. Conglomerate in this area deserves a close look.

See also: Meguma Gold of Nova Scotia, John Carter, http://goldminingandprospecting.blogspot.com/2011/04/meguma-gold-of-nova-scotia-canada.html

Finding Gold through Soil Analysis

2011-08-08T05:27:00.000-07:00

A diagram showing the different soil horizons. USDA

The new method of finding gold deposits through soil analysis has proven to be extremely effective. The soil is taken from the B horizon that is the layer below the A horizon the layer of soil at the surface containing organic matter. It works by finding soil that has anonymously high levels of gold or other elements. The average level of gold that is found in soil is about 5 ppb. This can be used as a background level of gold content anything above that is rated as an anomaly.

In practice soil tests are taken on a grid pattern; a good size to work with is a plot of land 400 by 400 m with samples taken every hundred meters. This will give you 16 points where you can take soil samples. The samples are then subject to an analysis checking for anonymously high levels of gold. Each analysis is noted that it's location on the grid with contour lines drawn between points of analysis. This is a quick way of finding places in the grid requiring further analytical work.

The size of the grid is entirely arbitrary where you can make it as large or small as you like by varying its spacing. Soil samples can be taken by digging through the A horizon with a shovel, or earth auger either hand or power operated. It is important to get a lower layer of soil below that which contains organic matter because A horizon soil can contain organic chemicals that can sequester different metals giving you a false reading.

When you find an area within your grid that indicates higher levels of specific metals you can include that area as a smaller grid where samples are taken every 10 m, and you can even refine this grid further until you actually pinpoint the location of a mineral deposit.

Soil analysis is a variation on geochemical anomaly mapping using soil as the matrix it is based on the theory that mineral deposits create an aura of metal ions in the surrounding soil that can be detected by an analysis. Geochemical anomaly mapping uses other matrices than soil including stream water, sediments, plants or other matter. This method also uses grid sampling is a way of finding anonymously high levels of metals beyond the background count.

The soil analysis method is the most accurate when it is possible in the field to use an X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (XRF) for performing the analysis accuratly.

Special Reports about Gold & Gems

2011-08-05T15:27:00.000-07:00

A pan full of gold! - Alaska Mining

Effective immediately we are issuing special reports about subjects pertaining to gold and gems. The price per report is USD $5.00 and is payable via PayPal. The reports will be delivered to you via Email as attachments. The first report of this series is titled How to Sell Your Gold.

How to Sell Your Gold consists of several potential markets for the gold you have mined both on and off the Internet. Some of these markets tell you how to sell your gold at market price of as much as three times its market value. Price USD $5.00 non-refundable.

Gold Occurrences in Newfoundland

2011-08-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

Gold from the Nugget Pond Mine in Betts Cove on the Baie Verte Peninsula of Newfoundland.
Photo by Rob Lavinsky

Gold was originally discovered in Newfoundland in the 1870s when there was a flurry of gold mining and prospecting in the Canadian Maritime provinces and Newfoundland. This activity died down after a few mines were opened and closed again. My great grandfather was one of those caught up in this early gold rush, but at least he mined enough gold for my great grandmother’s wedding ring. It was this same gold rush that led to his leaving Canada for the United States as it was discovered he was poaching gold from Crown Lands; he decamped from Canada rather suddenly.

Most of the gold occurrences in Newfoundland are found in the central part of the island, and at latest count there were over 200 mines or prospects. This is significant because the Baie Verte fault that marks a suture zone where gold is deposited. The Baie Verte fault cuts across the island from north to south as the dividing line between continental rocks to the west and oceanic rocks to the east already has active gold mines along the strike of the fault. This fault has been interpreted as a subduction zone that is dipping toward the west. The fault is one of the major faults that were in the super-continent of Pangaea. It extends from Staten Island, New York northwards with several name changes to Newfoundland. It is also found in Europe from Ireland across Scotland finally cropping out in western Norway.

Gold is only one of the metals associated with this fault where others include copper and other heavy metals. There have been several important mines found in the area controlled by the fault including the asbestos mines around Thetford Mines, Quebec and numerous gold occurrences.

Mings Bight was where the first gold was discovered in the 1870s that were followed ca. 1903 by some short-lived mines. By 1935 there were only 26 recorded instances of gold being found in Newfoundland. It wasn’t until 1976 when significant gold mineralization was found near Cape Ray on the south coast. In 1984 another deposit was found at Hope Brook.

A surge in prospecting followed the Hope Brook discovery that lasted until 1990. The prospecting was focused on some dismembered ultramafic belts that were analogies of the mother lode deposits of California. Then the search broadened until it included most of central Newfoundland. The low price of gold during the 1990s virtually stopped exploration until it started to pick-up in 2002 and remains very active.

The island of Newfoundland has produced more then 64 tonnes of gold with previously discovered, and new deposits being explored promising a rich future for gold prospecting in Newfoundland. Gold exploration waned as the gold price fell in the late 1990s but began to accelerate in 2002-03 in conjunction with the strong rebound in the price. As of late 2004,with the price continuing to rise, exploration is very active.

Previously discovered deposits and prospects are all being re-investigated and several promising new grassroots discoveries have been made.

The Province has produced over 64 tonnes of gold, about half of which has been derived as a by-product of base-metal mining.

Gold Occurrences in Labrador

2011-07-29T20:35:00.000-07:00

The Torngat Mountains of northern Labrador
Photo by Gierdzep

Politically Newfoundland and Labrador are one province of Canada their geological histories are so different that we have decided to treat them as separate entities. Throughout most of geological time Labrador has been part of the Canadian Shield with some of its far north disturbed by a fairly recent orogeny that raised the Torngat Mountains. The Torngats are in Quebec, Labrador and a small pert is in Nunavut. Geologically they are considered the Artic Cordillera with the highest mountain being Mt. Caubvick at 1,652 m (5,420 ft.) Geographically Labrador contains some of the wildest land on the East Coast of North America to the point it even lacks a trans-Labrador highway. It is also little explored even though it is known to contain gold.

Labrador in cells contains very few known gold deposits that are more a function of the lack of exploration rather than the fact that gold isn't there. You will find most of the gold in Labrador Inuit southwest corner where it butts up against Quebec. This is where they build a railroad From Sept Isles Quebec to Labrador city to transport iron from the mines there and Shefferville Quebec. Gold is often associated with iron mines.

There are many geochemical anomalies of gold phoned him the Archean Nain Province where it is associated with strong iron carbonate alteration of the Florence Lake greenstone belt and in quartz base metal veins at the Aucoin showing. The superior province also contains several areas that show minor gold mineralization where the northern occurrences are associated with metamorphosed iron deposits in the southern ones with pyrite-pyrrhotote-arsenopyrite veining in mafic and metasedimentary gneisses. Gold is also found in the eastern Makkovik province where it occurs as small being hosted the positives in quartz. These are found in felsic volcanic rocks at Poiniadluk Point. In the southeastern Churchill Province gold is found that the VBE-2 prospect where it is located in the Tasuyak metasedimentary gneiss that contained up to 5.5 grams per tone located in sulfide-graphite rich layers.

Gold is often found associated with greenstone belts that extend across the Archean all the way from Wawa Ontario to past Chibougamau Quebec. This is such wild country that it has never been thoroughly explored for gold and it is likely that the Abitibi Greenstone Belt extends eastwards into Labrador.

During the mid-1800s my great-grandfather prospected for gold in Labrador where he found enough to make my great-grandmother's wedding ring. Some prospecting was done as early as 1870.

Gold Occurrences in Tennessee

2011-07-19T17:39:00.000-07:00

A piece of gold bearing copper ore from the mines at Ducktown Tennessee
Photo by Brian Stansberry

Most of the gold in Tennessee occurs in a narrow belt found in Monroe and Polk counties where they come into contact with the North Carolina border. For a distance of about fifty miles in the streams draining down from the Smoky Mountains placer gold deposits are formed. According to reports placer gold has been discovered in the Caney Fork River around five miles below the Center Hill Dam. Most of the gold recovered is found as small particles that are dust sized. However, there are reports of larges sized nuggets as large as 2 or 3 ounces.

According to reports there have been a few nuggets recovered around Knoxville and further north in the area around Bristol, Tennessee. Recent communications report that there is also gold found in the central Smokey Mountains to the northeast of Knoxville. The author has seen some photographs of microscopic gold deposited in quartzite from this area. Gold has also been recovered from the copper sulfide ores mined around the Ducktown area as a byproduct of copper and zinc mining.

The bedrock map of Tennessee shows that the far eastern border of the state is in the Blue Hills province, a known gold producer that abuts the Valley and Ridge province immediately to the west. The map indicates that the whole Smokey Mountain National Forest probably contains gold the problem is really one of the idea the place has never been properly prospected.

Bedrock Geological Map of Tennessee. Most of the gold is found close to the North Carolina in the rock shown as brown. USGs

It was from the Valley and Ridge province where the author saw the photographs of gold in quartzite. This is a perfect place to find gold as the quartzite and quartz pebble was eroded from mountains that were further east in the Piedmont province of North Carolina. The Piedmont is peppered with gold mines, and it stands to reason some of this gold would have reached the Valley and Ridge province by the processes of erosion.

Gold has also been found at the Tellico plains as small grains eroded from bedrock of the nearby Unika Mountain on the border with North Carolina. The Unika Mountains is where the gemstone Unikite is found. This is a variety of granite with pink feldspar and green pisticite that is cut into cabochons. The gold is found mixed with the soil from near the summit of the mountain in a stratum of soil that is from 10 to 12 inches deep.

Most of the Gold in Tennessee is found along the eastern edge of the state and rocks that are of Cambrian or pre-Cambrian age. Or also called on the western flank of the great Smoky Mountains as well as in the creeks a few miles east of not those Springs. Another place where it is found is in back of Chilhowee Mountain medicine bottle County. Gold is also found in Polk County on Citico Creek, Cane Creek, Coker Creek and the headwaters of Tellico River. Coker Creek in their own County produced nearly all the gold that has ever been found in Tennessee that according to some authorities about into a little less than $200,000 worth of gold.

Some of the best areas to prospect for gold in Tennessee are a narrow belt of stream gravels that are about 50 miles long in the southern part of Blount, Monroe and pull counties where they are alongside the North Carolina border. According to some authorities some of the best prospect in and be found in the rivers and creeks of Monroe County. Goals also found associated with the many copper mines of Polk County around the Copperhill-Ducktown Square is produced as a byproduct from the copper mines.

The Chemistry of Gold Extraction: Part 1. Simple Methods

2011-07-04T14:51:00.000-07:00

A flotation cell similar to that used in the agglomeration process for gold recovery
by Dhatfield

Due to the complexity of this subject we are going to have to present it in several parts.

There are as many ways of extracting gold from its ores as there are ores it all depends upon which method is the most commercially viable and efficient. If the ore is amenable all that may be necessary is to reduce it to fine particles and extract the gold by gravity separation in water like any other method like panning or using a sluice box. A more advanced system is by using a “shaker table” a device that is slightly tilted in two directions. The gold bearing fines are added at the top corner of the table with the lighter materials being washed by water off the lower edge of the table leaving behind the gold to be recovered from the surface. There are several other schemes that have been developed over the years for affecting this process including the widely used “spiral classifier.”

A gold panner using a gold pan the simplest form of gravity separation
Photo by Alan Souter

Gold agglomeration is a technique that is used for the recovery of gold when it is impossible to use cyanide or mercury because of environmental concerns. The use of a process called coal-gold agglomeration makes use of a slurry made from finely divided coal and oil that works on the principle that gold is a hydrophobic material that won’t be wetted by water but will be attracted to the slurry. After the gold has combined with the slurry, the slurry is burned causing the gold to form larger particles that can be extracted using gravity methods using water.

In an actual test of this process gold ore was finely divided and mixed with powdered charcoal, oil and water then stirred briskly for an hour that formed agglomerates containing gold. Once the gold had formed a suitable agglomerate a collector such as potassium amyl xanthate (PAX) was stirred with the agglomerate for an additional fifty minutes. The gold bearing agglomerate and the residue gangue was then ashed in a muffle furnace and the gold recovered from the ash using aqua regia.

Greater gold concentration was obtained by increasing the viscosity of the oil or the increased size of the coal particles. The rate of gold recovery was also influenced by the rate of stirring. Stopping before after the optimum amount of stirring decreased the amount of gold recovery. By recycling the agglomerate showed that the amount of gold recovered could be further increased resulting in lowering the costs of the process.

Fists Full of Gold

2011-07-03T02:27:00.000-07:00

Chris Ralph the associate editor of the Mining and Prospecting Journal claims there is still plenty of gold out there for the taking. The title of his book is “Fists Full of Gold” because he hopes that will be what you have after reading his book. He has put years of experience in writing this book making it the most comprehensive prospecting book that has ever been written. The focus of the book is to teach you how to find gold deposits and what to do after you have. A lot of information is included in this book that simply can’t be found in other books about prospecting. There is plenty of basic information for beginning prospectors, more information for more advanced prospectors and plenty of information for those prospectors that have decades of experience. The book holds plenty of the latest technology and up-to-date methods for finding gold.

The book will teach you the skills of being a prospector in an entirely different and unique way that is explained in any other book. Equipment is not the only thing that is explained in this book that also explains the methods of using that equipment. Will the most important things that is covered in this book is where to look for gold, and how to recover the gold. The book was designed to be the only prospecting book you'll ever need, or will ever outgrow. Fists Full of Gold contains more than 360 pages for 225,000 words devoted to the world of prospecting. The book is longer than any other two or three books devoted to prospecting and gold. It's all written in words the average reader can understand that has no training in either geology, prospecting or mining.

The basics of prospecting and finding gold, including:
    The fact that there is lots of gold is still out there to be found
    How to use a gold pan, including crevicing, mossing and sniping for gold
    How to get the best recovery out of your sluice box or highbanker
    How to use a suction dredge to find and recover paystreaks
    How to operate a dry washer for gold
    An extensive section on metal detecting, perhaps the best on the market
Building your own equipment: including building your own:
    Portable sluice box
    Lightweight suction dredge
    Desert dry washer
How to operate a small scale commercial mining operation
How to deal with and get the most out of your black sands
How to get the best prices for your gold, specimens and nuggets
A full coverage of the geology of gold and silver mineral deposits:
    All about minerals and how to identify them
    Minerals associated with gold deposits
    Rocks: what they are and how to identify them
    Basic geology for the prospector in an understandable form
    A detailed explanation of placer geology and how paystreaks form
    A detailed explanation of hard rock geology and how gold deposits form
    How to recognize many types of hard rock gold and silver deposits
How to do research to find your own rich concentrations of gold:
    Using and understanding topographic maps, aerial photos and GPS
    Where to find little known sources of information on gold deposits
    How to use geology maps to find gold
Signs and indicators of gold deposits that you want to look for in the field
    How to read and interpret signs of old timer workings
    How to recognize geologic indicators of gold mineralization
How to prospect for commercial deposits of gold and silver
Mining law and how to stake and maintain your own claim
Platinum placers and deposits – How to prospect for them
Diamonds in placers – How to recognize them
Maps of where to find gold in the US and Australia

Plus hundreds of photos, diagrams and illustrations to explain the concepts presented in the book.

Price USD $29.95 plus $2.95 shipping and handling = $32.45

Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery

Connecticut residents please add 6.35% sales tax.

Gold Occurrences in Wyoming

2011-06-30T05:09:00.000-07:00

Add caption

1866 Map showing Wyoming in the upper left corner. South Pass can be found on the Oregon Trail.

One of the most prolific areas for finding gold in Wyoming is around the South Pass area where many gold deposits have been found over the years. Some of these deposits are measured in the millions of ounces. The state legislature in their infinite wisdom has placed the Carissa Mine with Wyoming’s version of Disneyland so it will never be developed although there is still from $1 to $5 billion worth of potential gold reserves that could be recovered from this deposit during a time of national financial crisis. The mine could also provide hundreds of jobs. Unlike the Abitibi and other greenstone belts in Canada the area around South Pass remains largely unexplored.

Dan Hausel, a geologist has mapped hundreds of gold anomalies over the past thirty years in the South Pass area. The area is a granite-greenstone belt where Hausel mapped over 450 square miles in five field seasons while he was living in a tent. Significant potential is there for iron and gold deposits as well as the possibility of finding colored gems as in the past the area has already produced specimens of aquamarine and diamond. After bringing fame to the Wyoming Geological Survey Dan retired in 2007, and moved to Arizona.

Oregon Buttes is another area having a huge potential in both paleo-placers and conventional placers. Geologists consider the buttes to be one of the largest deposits of gold in North America. The source of all this gold is unknown, but is presumed to be from the South Pass deposits where it was eroded and later deposited at the buttes.

A gold nugget from Williams Creek Wyoming

Photo by Rob Lavinsky

In 1870 the army established Camp Stambaugh near Atlantic City to protect the miners from the Indians, but many of the soldiers deserted to hunt for gold in the area. By 1872 there were twelve stamp mills operation in the area although hostilities drove the miners from the South Pass area until 1882 with the signing of the Treaty of Five Nations. The South Pass area holds many significant hidden and visible gold structures located in a shear zone with the Carissa Mine being the richest. This is an intensely deformed zone of iron oxides where the primary shear zone ranges from 1.5 to 80 feet wide. The deposit at Carissa is similar in many respects to the Homestake mine in Lead, South Dakota. There is plenty of geological evidence this shear zone extends to great depths under the Carissa mine.

Gold was first discovered in Wyoming in 1842 by one of the mountain men working for the American Fur Company, but it wasn’t until 1855 when gold mining started in 1855 when a group of gold miners came to South Pass from the goldfields of California, Later in 1861 another group of miners commenced mining the placer deposits along Willow Creek. The next discovery was in 1863 when another group of miners discovered the placer gold deposits at the Oregon Buttes.

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Oregon Buttes comprises one of the largest undeveloped gold deposits in the United States. The gold at the buttes is thought to have its origin in the greenstone belts found at South Pass.

Western Wyoming contains most of the gold deposits in the state although it is likely that some gold can be found in northeastern Wyoming where it joins the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Gold isn’t the only treasure Wyoming holds, some of the finest jade in the world is also found in Wyoming. The jade occasionally has specks of gold imbedded in the jade making a beautiful specimen.

The Mali Gold Scam

2011-06-28T08:10:00.000-07:00

Native gold USGS

P. T. Barnum was right there is a sucker born every minute and two to catch them. I recently received an Email advising me that a gold miner in Mali had 2,500 kg of gold dust that was 96.6% 22k gold. The price was ridiculous at USD $22,500. This is a good example of the old saying that if it sounds too good to be true it probably is!

How the scam works is by the miner to ask for money to refine the gold dust into bars as it is against Mali law to export gold dust. Once the perpetrator has your money he vanishes into the woodwork of Mali with your money.

The scam works because there is always an element of greed and cupidity in most people so the best advice is look before you leap!!!

Gulag Gold

2011-06-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

Prisoners working in the Gulag The prisoner who took this photo died short;y afterward.

It was during the 1920s when gold was first found in the Kolyma River Basin by Yury Bilibin a pioneering Soviet geologist. It was immediately after his discovery that Joseph Stalin founded the infamous prison camps that became the notorious “Gulag” whose purpose was to supply gold to the fledgling Soviet Union. It was in these camps where criminals and political dissidents were sent to mine gold under the most barbaric conditions. They were Death Camps where a human life was only worth three weeks of labor and then was discarded.

Prisoners at work mining gold in the Gulag

Yury Bilibin was a young geologist, but already well known in the Soviet Union when he was picked to lead the first expedition into distant reaches of northeastern Russia as head of the First Kolymian Expedition of 1928 - 1929. This was when they discovered extensive deposits of gold that under Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union were slave labor camps. It was here that Bilibin developed his theories on placer gold deposits and intrusive volcanics that led to the development of the theory of Metallogeny and Plate Tectonics. In 1938 he published his famous monograph the “Principles of Placer Geology.” For his work as one of the fathers of this science Bilibin received The Stalin Prize First Degree of the Soviet Union.

For the next 80 years this part of Russia has been extensively explored by geologists who have developed into working mines producing other metals other then gold until today it is a major mining center of Russia. Since the fall of the Soviet Union it has attracted the attention of many American mining companies.

These are the dead in the Gulag.

The Gulag was a system of forced labor camps established by Cheka in 1919 in the Soviet Union, but it wasn’t until the early 1930s that the population of these camps became significant. By then it was under the control of the Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps commonly called the Gulag. It was no longer operated by the Cheka, but now was under the NKVD, and later the KGB. All of these organizations were parts of the secret police. It continued to operate from 1919, but was mainly disbanded after the death of Stalin in 1953. Parts of the Gulag continued to operate until the days of Gorbachev into the 1990s. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 finally wrote “finish” to the Gulag.

This is one of the gold mining camps in the Gulag.

The prisoners in the Gulag comprised a polyglot group of including murderers, thieves and political and religious dissenters forced to work under barbaric conditions. The Soviets used Gulag Labor for many projects beside mining gold they were also used to build the White Sea – Baltic Canal, the Moscow – Volga canal, the Baikal – Amur main railroad line, a large number of hydroelectric installations, numerous industrial projects in remote areas of the Soviet Union. It was Gulag manpower that did most of the country’s lumbering and mining for coal, copper and gold.

Gold was what they mined in the Kolyma Basin, placer gold that was mined by prisoners. A book was published the Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn a survivor of the camps gives a graphic description of life in the Gulag. Solzhenitsyn was eventually released from the Gulag and exiled from the Soviet Union to settle in the United States where he made his home in Vermont. The downfall of the Soviet Union saw Solzhenitsyn return to Russia. Today his book, the Gulag Archipelago is required reading in all the schools of Russia as a reminder of what happened in the Gulag. Not since the days of the Roman Empire had miners labored under such conditions.

Gold Occurrences in Missouri

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The only part of Missouri where gold is found is in the counties bordering the Missouri River where gold was brought down from Canada by the glaciers. The gold was left behind when the last glacier melted about 12,000 years ago. Whatever gold is found is extremely, what miners call flour gold that won’t support a commercial operation, but is a lot of fun to find anyways.

This is gold found in terminal moraines that formed where the glacier was continuously melting in one place that are recognized by their hummocky appearance and many sand & gravel deposits. The Gold deposits are often accompanied by diamonds that are more likely to be found in payable amounts throughout the areas where glaciers once trod. Diamonds are another example of the many riches brought down from Canada by the glaciers.

Gold is found as panable deposits along the sand bars that line the Chariton River and its tributaries. It has also been found at Kirksville in Adair County in sand and gravel deposits. In Macon County there are two areas containing gold one of these is near the town of Elmer where gold is found in Murray Gulch. Around the town of Gifford gold has been discovered in glacial deposits.

A group being taught how to pan for gold.

The advice given by many geologists is not to spend too much time looking for gold in Missouri because you will be wasting your time. That doesn’t mean that Missouri is bereft of minerals because there are mineral deposits scattered throughout the state. The area around Joplin used to be the scene of extensive deposits of lead and zinc. These mines are now closed, but there are plenty of mineral specimens to collect in the area.

Gold Occurrences in Arkansas

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A view of the Ouachita Mountains from outer space. NASA

There is more then gold in Arkansas it also contains the Crater of Diamonds as a state park. This is found in the Crater of Diamonds state park where the public can find real diamonds in a former diamond mine and are allowed to keep what they find. This park is just to the south of Murfreesboro. The state also contains a mineralized area ranging from thirty to forty miles wide and about 150 miles long that offer many chances for the collector to find beautiful quartz crystals.

Quartz crystals from the State of Arkansas
Photo by Rob Lavinsky

Gold in Arkansas was originally discovered by the early Spanish explorers during the 1500s. Reportedly the Spanish Miners mined gold in the state during their time. The other time when gold mining occurred was during the period from 1800 to 1830. Most of the gold in the state exists as small flakes of the type called “pickers” or fine grains. You can find this gold in the many rivers and creeks draining the central Ouachita Mountains. This gold is found in roughly the same area where you can find the quartz crystals. The best place to look is in places where there is extensive black staining caused by manganese. At the time this mining was occurring it was reported they didn’t find much gold.

After the Ouachita Mountains were examined by geologists they came to the conclusion that little gold was to be found in these mountains. The prospects for placer gold were considered to be better however since gold is weathered from bedrock and is concent-rated into the streambeds as enriched deposits. A similar type of deposit was encountered during the Klondike Goldrush in 1897 where all the gold discovered was in the form of placer deposits that had weathered from the surrounding schist.

Even though gold is scarce in Arkansas doesn’t mean that other mining didn’t occur for many years the state was the largest producer of cadmium in the United States. This production came from Mississippi type deposits of lead and zinc that were found in the Tri-State Area of Arkansas, Missouri and Arkansas.

In order to make any prospecting venture worthwhile is a real good idea to read everything that you can find about the area where you are going. A good source is your local historical society and library. Among the prospectors of Canada there is a saying that more valuable mines are found in the shadow of a preceding mines headframe.

There are even small deposits of turquoise associated with copper in the Ouachita Mountains. This is then worked sporadically for its value as a gemstone for making jewelry.

Gold Occurrences in Oklahoma

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The early Spaniards led by the famous explorer, Coronado thought that Oklahoma was the home of the Seven Cities of Cibola that were legendary places that were made from gold. It was these rumors that caused another Spanish explorer, Desoto to discover the Mississippi River. Some of this legend is true since there are two areas on opposite ends of the state where gold is actually found.

The first of these areas is located in the southeastern part of the state in the Ouachita Mountains that are geologically part of the Appalachians that emerge from the surrounding sediments as an extension of those mountains. Several localities in these mountains have even launched gold rushes in the past. The gold is found in a continuation of the Southern Gold Belt. These mountains are also related to the Boston Mountains that have generated their own gold rushes.

A painting by Fredric Remington showing Coronado in his search for the Seven Cities of Cibola in Oklahoma

In the western part of Oklahoma more gold is found in the Wichita Mountains in sandstone that was deposited in the late Precambrian and early Cambrian ages. Later these mountains became involved in the mid-continental rift that caused the sandstone to become heavily intruded with gabbro. Even later in their history they were intruded with granite. And last they were intruded with other volcanic rocks. These intrusions left behind a legacy of gold.

Although there is some gold to be found in the Wichita’s there is not much according to reports, but even though there was a gold rush in the late 1800s. This gold rush was stoked by some unscrupulous assayers that kept pumping up the value of the ore that was found. All that is left today are some ghost towns like the Town of Wildman.

If you prospect in either of these districts the best place to look for gold is in the placer deposits of the rivers and creeks that drain down out of the highlands. Modern exploration techniques are apt to discover buried deposits here.

It is more then probable that further exploration of the Wichita Mountains using modern methods of exploration is apt to discover considerable amounts of various metals including gold.

It was the intrusions of gabbro that created the copper-silver deposits of the Keweenah Peninsula far to the north in Upper Michigan that were America’s first large-scale mineral rush.

A similar situation exists in

Portugal

where Triassic sandstone is heavily intruded by gabbro associated with the break-up of the super continent known as Pangaea. There are gold mines in

Portugal

operating today that were producing gold and other metals since the days of the Roman Empire.

Rocks associated with the mid-continent rift are especially rich in metal deposits as seen by the copper-silver deposits Michigan. The peninsula was the site of the first mining rush in the

that started in the early 1840s and continued until the mid 1940s it lasted more then a century. Exploration still goes on in rocks of the mid-continental rift. The most notable is occurring in the Arrowhead of Minnesota where they have uncovered massive amounts of copper, silver, gold and platinum group metals in the vicinity of Ely, MN in the Duluth Gabbro.

It is more then probable that further exploration of the Wichita Mountains using modern methods of exploration is apt to discover considerable amounts of various metals including gold.

Gold Occurrences in Texas

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A worker in a gold mine

Gold was first discovered by the Spaniards in Texas in 1756 where they discovered gold and silver on Riley Mountain. They made their discovery of gold in the central mineral district around the Llano Uplift. It was in the same area that the Spaniards discovered the lost San Saba Gold Mine that according to tradition was worked by Mexican miners after they gained their independence from Spain sometime in the early 1800s. The Spaniards lacked any technology to keep mines from flooding caused by the inrush of groundwater. This was the reason why the Spaniards limited their mining to those areas that were above the water table causing these mines to exist as long trenches that have long since been eroded away. The consequences of this weathering are that today these old gold mines are hard to find, and for the most part were operated as placer deposits.

The peculiar thing about the Llano Uplift is because it is composed of Grenville aged rocks that are around 1.2 billion years old that are actually an extension of rocks that are often found in the Appalachian Mountains instead of the Rockies. It is in these ancient rocks that gold is found usually in small deposits that are quite numerous; these deposits are similar to those that were found during the Klondike Gold Rush where the gold had eroded from the rocks and formed large placer deposits.

In many of the rivers and streams that drain the Llano Uplift placer gold can still be found. There have been tales of gold occurring in this area for the past 250 years many of these tales are more credible than others. It is tales of this sort to drive the prospecting business even though gold is found in small quantities throughout the area. It is the hope of virtually all prospectors that they will eventually strike a Bonanza or even find El Dorado itself.

The Llano uplift itself is pre-Cambrian in age, but is surrounded by rocks of Paleozoic age making it very similar to the Gold Belt of the Southeastern United States. Most of The state is an ocean of sedimentary rocks having an occasional outcrop of older crystalline rocks. It is in these rocks that you are apt to find gold. Gold can be found in rocks of both the Proterozoic and Phanerozoic ages.

The rocks found in the hills overlooking Presidio in the Rio Grande Valley are probably closely related in age to the Central Texas Mineral Region. With sedimentary rocks you often find a situation where occasionally older rocks do get exposed at the surface. This was what is happening here as well in the southern gold belt (Piedmont) in the Appalachian Mountains.

On the southern flank of the Chinati Mountains overlooking Presidio is the Prasidio Mine that was active from 1880 until 1942 when the War Production Board closed all the gold mines in the United States to free the gold miners for other wartime production. This one mine produced 92% of the silver and 73% of the gold ever produced in Texas.

There is also gold associated with a sandstone of Eocene age located in the Gulf Coastal Plain. This is gold that probably eroded out of the Llano Uplift rocks.

Nowhere in the state however is gold mining ever been extensive because the amount of metal available in the state appears to be limited. The Presidio and Hazel mines in West Texas and the Heath mine Llano have produced a total of 8,277 ounces of gold that end in 1942 when the government closed on all gold mines in the United States as part of the war effort during World War II. The last minute was in production in Texas was the Presidio mine where production and that in 1942.