SUCCESS OR
FAILURE
Sometimes, it takes
years to discover a claim's true potential. In times of high gold spot, assessing what remains in the ground is important knowledge. One need consider the work we've personally performed along with all the prior mining activities of others. It's conceivable that both us and our predecessors raked off only the easy-to-get-to surface stuff. Auriferous ore can be
scattered around worked-over properties in plain sight; gold-bearing detritus masquerading as
ordinary rocks. If you were to start collecting only the larger, more highly-mineralized pieces of quartz float and have it assayed, who knows what values could be locked up inside a ton of that rock? Have you prospectors given that idea much thought? Maybe the results will be rather anticlimactic. Still, I bet you won't be sorry you had it analyzed. Maybe the best pay remains beneath you buried in deep
leads. If that's the case, it could be either placer, lode, both. Maybe, instead, there's nothing down there but Leaverite. Just because gold hasn't made itself obvious doesn't mean your claim's finished. Gold-bearing anything,
whether alluvial or lode, holds monetary promise during times of insanely-high gold prices. If you're looking to buy a
claim outright instead of locating one yourself, chances are good what's being offered holds minimal to no minable gold whatsoever. In claims acquisition, there's countless scenarios one finds himself confronted with. A person or
company can obtain mineral rights to a claim holding excellent, minable gold. Hoping to explore and develop their new holdings, they file all the necessary paperwork. Even after satisfying Uncle Sam's needs, they're still denied the permits needed for start up to begin. That's the pits, cause without
permits, one's mining plans can be DOA. A righteous property winds up with claimants or lessees holding useless paper despite their prudent man intent. If getting permitted to use water presents the biggest obstacle,
maybe one's plan for processing gravels won't require water. What seemed a hopeless situation might be remedied. There's more than one method for extracting gold from the ground. In this business,
creative solutions, thinking outside the box, sometimes produces positive
results. Call it holistic mining if you will.
Consider down-sizing and becoming a small-scale
operation. Dry-mining with drywashers or
even metal detectors might be viable MOs on ground possessing the right characteristics. Neither method requires the use of regional water resources. If paydirt is rich
enough, hand-mining may be the answer. Hauling pay off the claim to a remote
processing site could provide another solution. In coarse gold country and in
extremely rich ground, such crafty tacks may be the answer to your
dilemma. Do whatever you can to mine because, if you own or acquire minerals
rights, then, by golly, it's your right to. With current gold prices, a sturdy,
hard-working, driven person with or without a crew would be foolish not to
process as much good, gold-bearing gravel as possible by any and every means
available. Am I right?
Most shallow claims in
the lower contiguous 48 states which contained good placer ground at one time
have been hammered by three or four generations of miners. One to three foot
deep gravels are relatively easy to mine by hand methods. Deeper gravel
deposits with undisturbed expanses of ground, on the other hand, may hold gold
close to bedrock, but only testing will bear that out. On hard-hit,
shallow-bedrock claims, your best opportunity of finding payable amounts of gold
lie in recent redeposits of flood gold. With sky-high gold prices, someone using
a system designed to capture super-fine gold might fare well reworking old
tailings. Also entertain the notion that tailings themselves could be comprised
of a high percentage of rich gold ore mixed in with the other non-auriferous,
unconsolidated alluvium.
With respect to
enrichment in recent times, promoters telling you their claim has replenished
itself could be accurately describing the claim. What isn't mentioned is 'how
much' the claim has been replenished. I seriously doubt many claim promoters
know the answer. In some ways, that's advantageous to prospective miner-types.
It means ground hasn't actually been prospected in recent times. No two claims
are ever quite the same. Comprehensive sampling is imperative if you're ever to
prove up a property. Beyond that, better recovery systems have the potential to
make formerly unprofitable mines profitable.
Beware of ‘plaster miners’ i.e. those who 'plaster' (hang papers), i.e.
a copy of the recorded claim notice on a location monument, but who actually
know little to nothing about the attributes of a claim. If the area has a
highly-productive mining history, here again, you may have found yourself a 'gem
in the rough'. Through the years, thousands of barren or unworkable claims were
promoted and/or sold to gullible, neophyte miners. Even if a drainage runs
through miles of old tailings and virgin (gold-bearing) high bar, another
hundred years might not bring down enough gold to replenish your claim to
profitability status should gold go to $3000. Conversely, maybe it's a fantastic
redeposit! By the way, since this was written several years back, gold has
soared well past $2000.
If you head for the hills, be careful out there and if you get a new ATV headed for the bush ready to go ANYWHERE...beware of false advertising. I see these ads showing yuppies climbing a mountainside in their KIA driving 50 mph and know just how unrealistic such activities truly are. It burns me to see such deception by auto manufacturers. I've got news! Driving like that is a recipe for instant disaster! Thanks for checking out my store.
Gold of Eldorado 6-5-12
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