Jack, you ask good questions. The Oro Grande I believe had a gravity mill.that re-concentrated the gold from the gravity cons, possibly by amalgamation? If that was the case, it stands to reason that the amalgamation might have picked up some platinum as metallic metal. It is hard to make a mercury amalgam of platinum, but it can be done.I would assume that the platinum in the shipments might have been low levels of contamination. In those days, I believe, the mints deducted for platinum. Wouldn't want that stuff (platinum) contaminating your shipment. Heavens to Betsy, no!
As for magnetism, jig cons from platinum placers are loaded with magnetic platinum minerals. I am ssure there must be books on processing platinum from gravity cons and certainly they cover the magnetic fraction. Does any one know how the Russians do it. Their Ural mountains cons are gravity cons and I will bet they have magnetic values. Like I said, common sense will usually prevail.
The folks at the Oro Grande would be well advised to listen to you on recovering gold. A lot of gold could be stripped out of the Oro Grande breccia zone with just plain old fashion gravity methods. The old timers did it before. Its cash flow, pure and simple. Jigs, spirals, magnetic concentrators etc. I believe there is between 1 to 1.5 million tons of ore that will concentrate by those methods.The concentration cost should be below $6.00 per ton. The gold and PGMs recovered into cons could be .15 to .35 equivalent gold ($50-$100). That isn't bad. The stock will not be able to represent the big picture as reserves, but the stock holders should like to see cash flow. Its not the bigger picture, but it creates $50 to $90 million to support their research. By the time the breccia zone is stripped out, the processing of the rest of the resource should be manageable, at least you would think so. Maybe I am making it too simple. You said it yourself. Some old timers shipped gold and platinum to the San Francisco mint. What were those old timers, some kinds of blooming wizards or something.
Just some thoughts Jack. A lot will be learned when production commences. And don't tell me about the gold and PGMs lost to tails. If that stuff becomes valuable, a suction dredge can suck it back up from the tailings pond and return it to the plant for reprocessing. mike |
