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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold and Silver Juniors, Mid-tiers and Producers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E. Charters who wrote (8867)	4/5/2006 3:10:47 PM
From: hubris33	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78416

EC - I get all tingly when you say stuff like "depositional phase!" <g> I understand the precipitation process ala crystallization from a nuclear beginning: its kinda like that 'grow-a-crystal' kit I got for the kids at Zany Brainy. So if I have a bunch of superheated water, it's going to dissolve a few metals and other elements, and, when cooled those elements will tend to precipitate out, with like elements seeking like elements, forming crystals. I can see the same solution-dissolution/precipitation in liquefied rock and the melt zone around where it intrudes. That is kinda like welding - melting the surrounding metal together with the metal in the weld rod to crystallize and form new metal - the only difference is the rock cools slower and it allows the iron molecules to get together, the quartz molecules to get together, and hopefully the gold molecules 'get together.' Now, the transport mechanisms within liquid rock have got to be much more difficult; it has got to be harder for like gold atoms to find each other under those conditions. But finally, I have a problem understanding the mechanisms involved with the heat & pressure of metamorphism. I guess it could be a combination of the two processes at the same time. That said, the Nevada Cortez Trend deposits seem to be associated with 'fairways' (FORE!?) at the margin and slope of the reef platform, per Harry Cook. (damn, what are sediments doing in hard rock geology! Can't these guys stay in their own separate boxes?} It seems as though the 'lower plate' rocks host the best deposits and those are the carbonate rocks. Obviously the targets are altered areas along major faults, horst blocks and secondary faulting: The faults providing intrusion pathways. What is the value of carbonates to gold? Is it the high porosity/permeability and trapped water that provides the superheated fluids and migration pathways for thermal intrusions? Is there something in the depositional environment that concentrates gold from seawater? {Nature's hidden alchemist? <g>} H3