Hi, Ron. Seems like interest in Eastern Bolivian property is heating up.
I recalled Guido's testimony at trial. See link below. Seems like he found microfine gold in Eastern Bolivia, I don't know if it is the same as our property. You need to read parts 10-14 or so of the trial segments, to get a good idea of why microfine gold is such a big issue in getting good assays, as well as the need for cyclones and/or Knelsons to get most of the gold recovered. Of course, the Trites, Paravacinni, Viscarra, Freydanck, and BD reports/papers also talk about the issue of losing a lot of the gold using the panning and sluice box techniques.
Seems like some interest in gold size and shape is appearing. The key point is that the gold has a flat, cornflake like shape. That does not mean it has the size of a cornflake, only the shape. It is flat, and the further down the Tipuani River you go, the flatter it gets, according to Viscarra. Guido also said it gets finer. It was really a gigantic ball mill action as the conglomerate was carried down the river. BD said gold particles less than 80 mesh (0.177 mm) are "barely visible". Ron says he can get down to 10 micron with Knelson, and has demonstrated 95% recovery of the total gold. I would guess that the particles less than 177 microns are what BD is calling "flour gold and dust". In the lab, they observed that the fine, flat pieces of visible gold floated on the water used in analysis. They put soap in the water to reduce the surface tension and get the particles to settle. Remember, they picked the pieces out of the various sample portions in the lab and put them in with the gold from the pan concentrates. They, of course, didn't pick any of the invisible gold. They didn't do fire assays because they recognized that the panning and sluice operations used by GE and the locals would recover only part of the gold. They set up their sampling to match what the people in the field were getting. In their words, they were "determining the alluvial gold content that can be recovered by gravity methods, and not the total gold content".
In the trial, the SEC lawyer was critical of Guido using fire assays, as well as identifying the gold in the rocks, pan concentrates and tailings, to get a total gold content. He, of course, felt that Guido was grossly overstating the amount of gold that could be recovered by sluice boxes, panning, etc. I guess he didn't know about the possible use of cyclones and Knelsons/Falcons. Of course, the logic is simple. Get the total gold identified. If it is apparent that the old methods of recovery, such as sluice boxes, was losing a lot of gold, go to Plan B and get some bigger money in hand and order some cyclones and Knelsons (and the Linatex contributed to the "modern day knowhow" too). BD made the same mistake, although I don't think at the time that GE could afford full blown, complete gold analysis. Whatever, if we continue to recovery more than people expected, the flour gold, dust, fine, ultrafine, invisible gold, whatever you want to call it, is the difference.
gerald
ragingbull.lycos.com |
