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Gold/Mining/Energy : A Little Forum For Gold Microclusters -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael J. Wendell who wrote (106)	1/21/1998 12:30:00 AM
From: Joe Champion	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 142

Mr. Wendell, I cruise through the SI threads as a hobby, but in your your last post I see a few technical flaws. You said: >>Dissolve it in hot nitric acid, about 11%. Do this in a white porcelain-parting cup. After dissolution, study the bottom of the cup. Is there any blackish or blackish brown residue that would indicate gold? Study it well. That is why you used a porcelain-parting cup. It is the white background that helps to see the traces of residue metals. Go to the AA or ICP (Induced Coupled Plasma) for an analysis of the acid. Still no gold higher than maybe 2 parts per billion is reported, insignificant. The silver has truly met the acid test. My test.>> With a portion of your statements I totally agree. For if you understand the priniciples of emission spectroscopy you would only detect the ionizing particles. Since Au can be carried in nitric acid as a colloidal, or sub-colloidal it would not be ionized within the chamber. Hence it would not be detected. Regarding blacks in a parting dish, please note that antimony produces blacks (it is not soluble in nitric acid) and is commonly associated with lead. Furthermore, ICP is an acronym for Inductive Couple Plasma (not induced coupled plasma). I am not being picky, but numerous references are made during the past 100 years regarding the fire assay of PGMs. The bottom line is it is difficult unless you inquart Ag or Au. Refer to pubilcations by Ammens, T. K. Rose and numerous others. With total respect to Mr. Murray White (a man who I have communicated with for years and respect his +40 years in trying to unravel numerous mysteries) pay him his contractual fee and say take my ton of dirt and reprocess the slag and give me an ounce of gold. Is it contamination? Who knows? For you end up with three tons of slag from the ore. Corporate research groups from ARASCO and Phelps Dodge have observed this mystery for the past 30 years. Guess what? They can do it in their laboratory, but fail when they enter into production. Those laboratories are now inactive. Remember, it does not matter what assay technology that one finds that works on their mineral. What matters is -- will the mineral be acceptable to the end refinery! The bottom line is -- if you have gold, put it in a pile, if you have platinum put in another pile. Now you have reality. Joe Champion www.transmutation.com

To: Michael J. Wendell who wrote (106)	1/23/1998 6:46:00 AM
From: john wickenden	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 142

Mike....re impurity (Pt in Ag inquart)..... Some thoughts occur about testing for the above in your post 106. Let me run this one past you. First an aqua regia digestion of the silver and then remove the HNO3 as per standard (by simmering down to a syrup, then reloading with HCl each time done three times or until no brown oxides of nitrogen are driven off), followed by dilution then addition of ammonium chloride to precipitate ammonium chloroplatinate if Platinum is present. ( I give Platinum a capital letter because it helped buy the house I'm sitting in! ) Seems to me if one filtered this through a fine millipore filter for microscopic analysis it would be even easier than checking for your ''bacteria like '' gold particles, simply because of it's colour. As you'll know it is a beautiful bright orange, and this to my knowledge is very specific to Platinum with the exception it could hold a small proportion of Palladium ( yes capital letter there too! ) which if I remember would be a more dull yellow. The small proportion would be irrelevant as this is only a visual positive test. Now, if the original AR solution was ICP'd after treatment it should give a reading on contained PGMs. One would be looking at exactly the same lower limits and accuracy as if testing the ore. Reduction of the ICP test solution would have to be done for greatest accuracy so possibly the AR would need to be altered somewhat (only to something that would still hold the PGMs.....thoughts?).....but this would give accuracy down to what Inspectorate Griffith will give, +/_0.1 g/t. I would be dubious about dissolving off the silver first to leave PGMs etc as it seems the DD ore's precious elements can be dissolved by a wide range of solvents even if only to a small extent it would be too much. It was very interesting that you made this post. Back in the days of IPM's last AGM word was that BD pulled out of a signoff of the extraction procedure because they realised they had not used certified silver. I am not saying there was anything impure about the silver used, just that BD may have realised the situation too late to get a proper check done on the silver, so even if they thought everything was Kosher they couldn't put their name to it. To some extent this vindicates IPM when all around were furious at no signoff, they did after all produce the gold ''on the table'' in an amount that would make it extremely unlikely for it to have come from impurity. Whilst touching the subject of analysis work taking a long time, it seems to be often the case. I would suggest that if anyone wants some work done and are told '' We'll put you on the end of our list, your one day's work will be done in four weeks'', then use the phone and UPS it abroad. I was about to get an ICP done recently and I can get a result in 48 hrs.......fire assays with extra comminution had to wait just days for lab time.......extremely well respected lab, no hick outfit. Getting work done quickly is essential to an exploration because usually you make your next move dependent on it, and with a chain of such delays it can make a hell of a difference. Shareholders on these threads are often kept waiting and frustrated I believe because of this and when it gets too long their confidence evaporates. The moral: pick the right lab to start with and agree what your working relationship will be like timewise before you start. Thankyou Mike for your very interesting and generous posting. regards to all John Wickenden