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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 (8907)	4/6/2006 2:16:48 AM
From: hubris33	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78416

Thanks for the further clarification. What about this process? Taking the tarnish off gold mining Friday, 24 August 2001 Toxic cyanide spills may become a thing of the past, if research into a non-toxic chemical for gold extraction is put to use. Dr Matthew Jeffrey, a chemical engineer from Australia's Monash University, is developing a new technique that uses thiosulfate in the presence of ammonia, instead of toxic cyanide, in the extraction of gold from ore. He presented his results at the ScienceNOW! conference currently underway in Melbourne. 'Thiosulfate is slightly less reactive than cyanide, but in sufficient quantities is as effective in the gold extraction process," said Dr Jeffrey. "It is the only non-toxic chemical that will effectively leach gold." Cyanide is poisonous because it reacts with haemoglobin, reducing the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood. However, alternatives to cyanide extraction have not been researched until now because, according to Dr Jeffrey, it is a "generally effective process". Cyanide attaches to minute particles of gold to form water-soluble gold–cyanide compounds from which gold is later recovered. Leftover cyanide is stored in tailing dams and re-used indefinitely, which makes it a cost-effective procedure. The mining industry has long argued that the dilute cyanide concentrations employed and the rapid ultraviolet decomposition of cyanide into relatively non-toxic compounds make cyanide extraction safe. However, many of the breakdown compounds, while generally less toxic than the original cyanide, are known to be toxic to aquatic organisms, and may persist in the environment. The disastrous effects of cyanide were felt early last year when a tailing dam collapsed at Baia Mare in Romania due to an unprecedented volume of snow melt. The cyanide cocktail was released into the Tisza and Danube Rivers, killing virtually all aquatic life. Gold mines are often located in regions that are unsuitable for tailing dam construction, such as Papua New Guinea where frequent earthquakes occur. Cyanide has also been known to leach into the surrounding groundwater after prolonged storage, affecting town water supplies. Dr Jeffrey discovered that thiosulfate is an effective alternative to cyanide using a instrument called a rotating electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance, which accurately measures how rapidly gold reacts with specific chemicals. Commonly used in photography and paper manufacture, thiosulfate decomposes into sulfate, which is harmless under the alkaline conditions used in the research, said Dr Jeffrey. In fact, "thiosulfate was once used as an antidote to cyanide poisoning", he said. The research is funded by the Australian Research Council and the Australian gold industry. Andrew Hill - ABC Science Online abc.net.au Then of course the Tonkin Springs property (now USGL/McEwen) was recently (2004) under option to BacTech to use their bioleaching method for high sulfate ores. I suspect the microbes reduced the sulfur in the ore, releasing the gold. QEE still roasts its ore over there in NE Nevada. Looks like NEM will be sending some ore to QEE for processing in the near future. H3

To: E. Charters who wrote (8907)	4/6/2006 3:40:12 AM
From: koan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78416

Charters, I understand perfectly what you are saying and I agree with it completely. What I am saying is that you cannot apply it here. Here is where I disagree with you. You are simplifying the mind in an arbitrary way that in my mind is not valid, scientifically. And where there is NO CLEAR LINE of understanding or functioning!, then society has the right to make existential decisions in the best interest of society! You are trying to draw a clear line where there is not one. For example: the more testosterone a women has in her body the better her spatial relations and ergo the more male she is! Tests have shown gay men often think more like women. The mind is very complicated and we are still not even clear about what intelligence is. The left brain is involved in sequential logic and the right brain in the simultanous juxtapositioning of things. When one cuts the corpus collosum TWO COMPLETELY SEPERATE minds appear. Our DNA is almost exactly like all other humans on earth and only 2% differetn than chimpanzees. My point is that all humans are both male and female. You cannot apply statistics when you do not know what you are applying them too!! You are arbitrarily using, I think procreation, as your variables, but we are all both male and female to varying degrees. In essense we do not know what we are exactly or how we work. But we do know that the wants and desires of gays as regards mates is the same as heterosexuls (i.e. lve and marriage); and we know it is the religions and uneducated that are drawing a black and white line! Hell they are seldom right about anything-lol! Like republicans-lol!