You are quite right, the complexing of gold by cyanide is a slow process and increases with temperature. Usually the cyanided test batch has been ground finely in a disc and cavity crusher(shatterbox) and screened for malleable gold particles which flatten or spindle which are treated separately and the box itself washed with a cyanide soak which is added to the sample to catch smeared gold inside it. Lots of clues, no detectives. The emperor had no clothes and nobody questioned. It was like trashing motherhood and apple pie.
I bet they teach more about salting now! You are right the academics have gutted a lot of geology courses, due no doubt to the pressure to attract students, they dumbed them down, and debased them in my mind.
Salting can be a very cunning fraud, carefully done a little goes a long way. With BRE-X $25,000 worth of gold cost the investors $5 billion plus. The sad part is the broad impact it had on many lives and the chilling it has done to investment in that area.
In a paradoxical way there will be better deals now. A good mine when found will be worth just as much when producing, but the shares will be buyable at 50-90% discount, so if you recognize the deals at the early stage you will get a better reward ratio than before when they got bid up a lot. So hunt for the gems. Some I have found are:
MGR(VSE) Mongolia Gold, soon to produce gold from their own mill.
SAS(TSE) St Andrews, producing soon going up.
PFG(VSE) Pacific Rim. Barrick JV, was $8 plus, mine there for sure.
PNB(VSE) PennGold, Manganese mine there is 3 years
SJD(VSE) St Jude gold in Ghana, more to run.
KRY crystallex, Dome will deal with them soon.
I own one of the above(PFG) which I feel will be the best, if I had more $ I would spread it around.
They all have threads for looking at.
Good hunting.
Bill
Bill |
