We talk a lot about placer mining because that is our recreation. We spend an equal amount of time, however, searching for lode gold.
It’s a different type of prospecting, but employs the same basic principles… discovery, file a claim and mine the gold!
There is a tremendous amount of gold just lying on the forest floor waiting to be discovered. Historically, the dirt and rock on the streets of Rochford panned out $300 worth of gold. The source of the gold in that area is quartz and schist of the Rochford formation, mined at the Standby, Montezuma, Standard, Yellow Bird and King of the West mines, all following this geologic formation.
Veins traverse the forest floor, erosion has worn the outcrops and you can find what is called “float” rock that has been liberated from this formation. Not all quartz is gold bearing, but experimentation will tell you which is a gold bearing quartz.
Processing is a more complex issue in lode mining. The gold bearing ore must be crushed and then pulverized to a powder consistency to liberate the gold. We have a friend interested in investing in a portable mill that would reduce the ore to concentrates. It would be a very efficient way to sample and explore deposits to recover a little gold. We’re recommending that he provide a service to claim holders to evaluate free-milling quartz ores. It’s a service we would appreciate at our six lode claims. In fact, when the weather breaks, we will collect a pickup load of ore from each and have him process it to determine gold quantities.
I guess our goal here is to dispute traditional thinking! Homestake Mining Company and general publications on the minerals of the Black Hills have a history of discouraging lode mining, claiming that all the gold has been mined out! About 9 out of 10 people we talk to make the same comment, “Homestake got all the gold!”
If that were the case, why are the placer creeks still being replenished annually? If that were the case, why do we see what is obviously gold-bearing quartz at multiple locations? One answer to that question would be the current price of gold making mining much more feasible… when Homestake closed their Lead mine the price of gold was around $250 and cost of production about the same. That does not constitute a profitable operation. The cost of production has probably increased, but the price of gold has skyrocketed and doesn’t show sign of leveling off in the immediate future.
We highly recommend you prospect or employ us to prospect for lode gold before gold prices bring big mining companies back to the Black Hills. The gold is there and we can prove it!
No comments:
Post a Comment