Documented Gold Bearing Telluride/Oxide Ores

[DarkspARCS]

Richard,

Have you ever seen a gas explosion? I am not a miner nor caver so I am unsure what the risk and likelihood is as to flammable gas pockets heavier than air being present. But off the top of my head, if you think it likely enough that you are compelled to test, I would think that lowering a match (although effective) into a suspect area may not be the safest approach.

Greetz OZ... Short answer: yes, I've worked in several petrochemical refineries, two of which I survived explosions from. @ ExxonMobile a LPG blowout that then ignited from an arc welder's spark, killing 16 men instantly. @ Arco a HydoCracker reaction that threw a 1/2 ton turbine a mile away (other side of the refinery, lol)... with a resulting combustion of surrounding materials that lasted 4 days! :shock:

Those incidents involved complex engineering you just won't find relevant in this enviroment. This environment will not produce exploding elements due to one simple factor - the absence of density, thus an absence of locomotive force. Without that, the calculated response to my introduction of an ignition source to a normal yet flammable atmosphere will thus be a quiet flare that will trace out the element until exhustion extinguishes the flame.

With my use of fire I've successfuly verified the habitability of a lower region atmosphere by either observing negative reaction or corrective introduction.

 

[shaftsinkerawc]

Not trying to be argumentative, just want people to be aware of the hazards. I somewhat accept your lantern theory for the explosion hazzard except the point where a flare as you call it might creep through a crack to a more explosive pocket. They use battery lights to avoid igniting any flamables as well as carry a gas/oxygen monitor in mines for a safety reason. Second a atmosphere may not be explosive or oxygen deficient and still have a deadly concentration of a lethal gas. Be Safe.

 

[DarkspARCS]

I do accept your concern as, yes, variables dictate outcomes like fate guides our every move.

There comes a time in people's understandings of things however, where they discover that while the above statement holds vast and inevitable truths for most, they themselves discover a personal ability to control variables involving circumstances surrounding an interest of thiers that others would observe as prodagenic in nature.

Perhaps this intuition holds true for me, where my trust in it has had to be cultivated in order for it to finally work for me at opportune times.

After all... mankind used toxic naptha saturated torches as an underground light source for thousands of years, which evidently worked just fine for them. It wasn't until the 21st century that mankind developed technologies that in theory and personal perspective has improved our quality of life.

Safety in everything we do as a species takes literal time to ponder it, and I'll be amongst the first to commend thoughtful contemplation that leads to a safer action. It's the ability to pause and take time to do this that has been the true factor behind our improved quality in life.

My decision to cause the possible flare of any flammable atmospheres on the lower level from where I was standing was indeed a thoughtful decision on my behalf in that:

1. Flammable gas is naturally heavier than air, and as such any flare up originating from that lower level would stay on that level.

2. by depleating any pocket(s) of flammable gas a vacuum effect would initate a slight movement of breathable atmosphere to fill the depleation gap created, thus attracting a renewal of air into the mine via the mine entrance.

So as can be understood, my safety concern was indeed a process that not only invoked intelligent reason, but also a reliance upon personal understandings.

Safety First!!

 

[Ocean]

Interesting post.

It is not very often I find words that I have never seen nor heard.

What is prodagenic?

 

[Platdigger]

Not sure whay he had mind, but, what I came up with was "highly acidic".

 

[Oz]

It is not very often I find words that I have never seen nor heard. What is prodagenic?

I believe he meant pragmatic.



DarkspARKS,

While you have put together a post using words that compel one to believe it is coming from one of a fine formal education, it is obvious that such verbiage is awkward for you. In other words, I am unimpressed with fancy words when they do not fit the facts. Do not get me wrong, I believe in the proper choice of words when they give added detail or clarity, but not when used to only impress with no added benefit as to understanding. Personally I felt upon reading your post that you were trying to obfuscate the lack of facts in your opinion in order to defend your position.

Getting to the point. You can take whatever risks you want personally, that is your right. But when you post on this forum a procedure or process recommending it for others to follow, you will find that if others here feel you have erred in judgment we will give our opinions to the contrary. My previous comments as to your procedure were to not only to look out for “your” safety, but to caution others that may choose to follow in your footsteps.

Let us get back to what you said.

Honestly, I did not consider that very important factor in planning for this venture, which as someone who is OSHA 30 certified you would have thought would have remembered that! I mean really: just because I'm delving lower than the SULFIDE layer doesn't mean that sometime in that 100 year time frame water didn't seep in and create a hydrogen sulfide chamber - right?! :shock: Carbon Dioxide pit? :shock: Carbon Monoxide tomb? :shock:

Hydrogen sulfide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_sulfide “Hydrogen sulfide is slightly heavier than air; a mixture of H2S and air is explosive”.

Carbon dioxide, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide not a serious risk unless you wish to breath O2. But you may wish to consider its mining use “In enhanced coal bed methane recovery, carbon dioxide is pumped into the coal seam to displace methane”.

Carbon monoxide, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide is slightly heavier than air (still air in a cave anyone) “During World War II, a gas mixture including carbon monoxide was used to keep motor vehicles running in parts of the world where gasoline and diesel fuel was scarce”. That sounds like it could possibly detonate.

1. Flammable gas is naturally heavier than air, and as such any flare up originating from that lower level would stay on that level.

Not true. You may get "just" a flare, but you may also get a detonation. Not a good thing even under normal circumstances, let alone in an old mine with you standing over the hole holding a rope. How many tons of rock do you think were over your head?

You had also mentioned a LPG gas explosion in your past (damn glad it did not kill or cripple you), since you were in the petrochemical refining industry you should obviously know where propane comes from. Propane itself in a refined state is heavier than air and very explosive. Some of its raw constituents are heavier than air as well, and very explosive.

Again, take whatever risks you wish. But if you put your methods forward on this forum as the best way to proceed, expect others to hold you to task if they disagree with your risk assessments.

My “personal” #1 priority here is to keep people safe. Helping people recover precious metals is secondary.

As always I welcome constructive criticism. I would also ask for your indulgence if I have been less than articulate in my reply due to my lack of a formal education.

 

[Harold_V]

1. Flammable gas is naturally heavier than air, and as such any flare up originating from that lower level would stay on that level.

Not true. Gas that we commonly refer to as "natural gas" (primarily methane) is lighter than air. That fact may not be pertinent, but we strive for truth on this forum.

Harold

 

[DarkspARCS]

This is the point at where most people pop off and grow indignant at the threefold assault against my vocabulary, my reasoning, and my intelligence.
:x

I don't see a need to, as alot that has been said was directed at extreme case in point mater that would need variables set to evolutionry proportions just to create the scenarios argued.

If you strive for truth on this forum (which I fully agree with) that's excellant, I appaude your efforts. The truth still remains that FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS, MANKIND USED FIRE TO LIGHT HIS PATH UNDER GROUND... and nobody was blown up (at least from hard rock mining. If somehow a petrochemical pocket became exposed I'm sure all involved found out soon enough).

You don't have to take my word, please look it up yourself.

If you don't personally grasp a command of the English language, don't act even more ignorant by trying to troll this thread. "Prodagenic" has it's ROOT from the word prodigal, from which the word prodigy is derived from as well.

Grow up - ask questions if you don't understand. Furthermore, you don't have to agree with me, and can even give me helpful advice which I will either absorb or discard.

But please refrain from the mockery. And if my decisions stray from the mainstream of acceptance, try to not put me in the 'shiney metal box' - as I haven't, nor will attempt to, do that to any of you.

Pertaining to errors I made regarding facts, I appologize or my mistakes. At 42 years of age and with an educated backgound I still find I sometimes just can't get it right... but that's the nature of being imperfect.

 

[Ocean]

This is the point at where most people pop off and grow indignant at the threefold assault against my vocabulary, my reasoning, and my intelligence.

I don't see a need to, as alot that has been said was directed at extreme case in point mater that would need variables set to evolutionry proportions just to create the scenarios argued.

If you don't personally grasp a command of the English language, don't act even more ignorant by trying to troll this thread. "Prodogenic" has it's ROOT from the word prodigal, from which the word prodogy is derived from as well.

Grow up - ask questions if you don't understand. Furthermore, you don't have to agree with me, and can even give me helpful advice which I will either absorb or discard.

But please refrain from the mockery. It's not becomming of a gentleman.

Thanks for the clarification on "prodogenic".

I was simply looking to learn.

Oh, you misspelled "prodigy". :lol:

 

[DarkspARCS]

I did not! :roll:

Thanks, fixed it.

lol, reading back on my perturbed post I said the words 'grow up'... While I might at times say things out of anger, I still refuse to grow up... how can I expect others to lol...

Second a atmosphere may not be explosive or oxygen deficient and still have a deadly concentration of a lethal gas. Be Safe.

Arg! I'm defeated... somebody put a sheet over me!

That's a good point to make. Once I get my first troy ounce made I'll need to invest in alot of gear to make things more safe with this venture. Being a tradesman who hasn't done much underground work, I find myself having to discover new sources of income due to the fact that I've been unemployed now for 8 months. Discovering this mine appears to be the key to that end, thus if self reliance is the way to go in my life at this time then I'll have to spend money I currently don't have to attempt making this happen.

 

[butcher]

burning flames in mines you may deplete oxygen and create deadly gases that were not there. mining has many dangers, and old abandoned mines can be death traps, be careful and do not take safety lightly, most men who died from accident never saw the danger comming thinking they were safe (too late for them to learn better?). some gases were hard to detect in mines untill they found a dead man. birds were good detectors, they died first so men could get fresh air.

 

[DarkspARCS]

I remember the birds lol, poor lil scapegoats.

 

[DarkspARCS]

Well I finally found the U.S.G.S. Document published in 1915 that reports the production statistics as well as WHAT was being mined.

The report as it reads states all the detaiIs of the mine:

The primary ore body mined is known as PlumbJarosite, a high grade PolyMetallic Replace Ore type that contains Gold, Zinc, Iron, Lead, Silver, and Paladium:

Here is what it looks like:



Here is the article snippet from 1915:











Continued...

 

[DarkspARCS]

Are these reports right?! I mean the figures they're making claims on are astonomical!

 

[Ocean]

Well, that's exciting!

 

[Richard36]

That's some hot ore if those numbers stay that high.
Wow. That pretty much says it all for me.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".

 

[aussco999]

DarkspARCS:

The ore assays are probably correct, but the rest of the mine info may be slightly skewed. I realize the info you’ve posted has been taken out of context and there may be some other pertinent info in the USGS document, but with this info alone, I wouldn’t recommend quitting your day job just yet.

I see a few Red Flags in the documentation;

From a hard-rock mining aspect, it would be very difficult to efficiently extract even high grade minerals from a 3/4” vein, without a high percentage of dilution. The document stated (from what I could read) that only 2 shipments of ore, an aggregate of about 1 ton, was sent out to the smelters. Even with the high assay results, that small of amount shipped indicates mining difficulties. There’s always a way to get a job done, but some of them get real expensive.

Another important item is the assay report itself. Keeping in mind the assay numbers are based on oz/ton of that 3/4” vein only. Unless I’m reading it wrong, it looks like they needed to mine out 100’s of tons of surrounding country rock to accumulate just 1 ton of the plumbojarosite mineral. Now days, that means a lot of serious up-front mining expenses.

Also, there was some wording in the document about the vein pinching out in the lower levels. And, with the limited info on the mineral plumbojarosite, like specific gravity and hardness, how would you even concentrate it beyond hand cobbing by color? Maybe that explains the small 1 ton shipment?

I don’t think extracting the precious metals from the ore would be that difficult (they smelted it), as much as the problems you would encounter with just mining the ore. If you decide to go ahead with this project, I would still recommend you keep one hand on your wallet and have a jaundice eye until you knew a lot more about it.

Good luck, :mrgreen:

John

 

[Richard36]

It's good to be skeptical, it's another to be stupid.
This ore obviously contains "High Values" in the Copper Ore itself.

The common Copper Ore will contain Gold and Silver in reasonably high concentration.
That being said, it should be sold as copper ore with whatever percentage of gold and silver it contains per ton of material.

This stuff qualifies as a Tri-Metal Ore, (3 metals) possibly even Quad-Metal Ore, (4 metals)
and therefore could easily be sold as such.

That is the direction that I will go with this when I receive samples to send off to my market contact and see what I can accomplish as far as finding a market for DarkspARCS Ore.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".

 

[DarkspARCS]

Hey, thanks for bringing that point out aussco999, I didn't catch that part.

Aside from this report, which obviously was created near the begining phase of the mine's operation, several passages and two sink shafts are present today, and the detailed passages provided by the graphic the report furnishes are much longer in length as they exist today.

From what I've observed it was the sinking of that second shaft that opened this mine up, as it exposes a wall to wall kaolinite deposite quite loaded with skarn inclusions coupled with a rediculously overintruded deposite of multilayered polymetallic replacement deposite in the jarosite mineral family oozing with palladium, platinum, iridium, osmiridium, gold, silver, zinc, copper, iron, arsenic, molybdenum, silicon, lead, aluminum, titanium, and traces of uranium.

When I state rediculously overintruded, you now know what I mean lol.

 

[aussco999]

Rock Man Rick:

After reading your post above I thought it best to let a few days pass before responding. Mostly because even now, I’m still not sure if you were calling me stupid, my earlier post was stupid, or both. So, I’ll take it at face value and presume you meant both. And, now that you’ve broached the subject of stupidity (apparently it’s OK to do so on this forum as no one has stepped forward to reprimanded you for that transgression), then maybe we should do a Reality Check so we will all get a better understanding of stupidity.

RC #1: Because you’re not a graduate or licensed geologist, that means I couldn’t hire a person with your limited skills on any of my commercial mining projects beyond the level of a geologist’s helper (a gopher), or only as a common laborer because of your limited knowledge of most mining procedures.

RC #2: Because you’re not a certified assayer, your services are of little value in the mining industry. Even most in-house assays are overseen by a certified assayer so as to be of real value for the mine owners/stockholders. Also, in the real world, no one will loan you any serious money on a mining project without repeatable certified assays. Lots and lots of them.

RC #3: Nowhere in the posted mining report by the professional geologist for the U.S.G.S does it show this mine contained “High Values” of copper ore. People in the mining business know that a couple of high value base metal assays are of little importance if they are not backed up with high volume tonnage. When you are getting paid a few $/lbs. for a concentrate versus $1K+/ounce, you have to move a lot more material. Mining 101.

RC #4: Your statement about “common copper ores containing reasonable gold and silver concentration” is also erroneous. Most copper ores contain only trace amounts of precious metals. What makes the large copper producing companies also the largest gold producing companies is volume, as in 1000’s of tons/day. Precious metals are often recovered in the copper SXEW process as a sludge, or after acid heap leaching a copper ore, then converting to a cyanide leach to recover the precious metals. (See Magma Copper)

RC #5: Most all ores of value can contain some form of bi, tri, quad or more metal/semi metals combinations (that’s why they’re called minerals), but they don't always exist in an economical recoverable form. Knowing that info is a key to running a profitable mining project, and that’s what separates the professionals from the amateurs.

RC #6: I asked my current mining project geologist (with over 32 years of field experience), to review and comment on the posted U.S.G.S. mining info and your recommendations. Because this is a family orientated forum, the only response from him that I can post is the words “hobbyist, at best”. I’m not going to repeat his honest, but less than congenial other comments.

After reviewing just a few Reality Check items, you might want to curtail your diarrhea of the mouth problem when addressing someone you know absolutely nothing about with your “Want-a-be” attitude. It would be a huge waste of my valuable time to continue pointing out your lack of mining knowledge while you’re busy blowing smoke up someone’s back side with your “wild-eye drivel” and expensive misinformation.

Also, so you’ll know, I’ve never been impressed with anyone posting several pages of plagiarized internet/book info on mining, along some mineral photos thrown in and calling it their work. I’m a big believer of; if you haven’t actually done the hands-on procedure, operated the equipment or have not been down in the hole, then you can’t claim any of the credit.

With almost three decades in the “hands-on” mining business, I’m real thick skinned with very little bothering me these days, but that doesn’t mean I’ll take a load of crap from fools. I don’t believe my earlier post was even directed toward you and why you felt compiled to respond in that rude and boastful manner, speaks of your real character. I’m not in the habit of calling people stupid, but if push comes to shove, I’ve no qualms about making them look that away.

It’s your call. What do you want to do?

John