Placergoldmininginalaska 18feb15 151008105142 Lva1 App6891

Dylan McFarlane
d.e.mcfarlane@exeter.ac.uk
1
Background – ASM & Placers
Prospecting
Exploration & Development
Mining
Reclamation & Marketing
200 Pans = 1 cubic metre
1 cubic metre = 2 tonnes
> 1 cent 1 gram Au = $50 US
< $1
10 flyspecks = 1 milligram (dust)
1 A colour = 1 – 2 milligrams (ball point pen)
There are no B or C colours, and no nuggets
150 episodes over 5 seasons
5-10 minutes education - 30 minutes drama
Yukon miners better

History
Politics
Economics
Geography
Golden History:
Beauty, Power, Value
Peruvian Chacras -“gold farms”
Las Medulas in Northern Spain, mined 25 a.d.

Serra Pelada, Brazil 1980s
Stereotypes of ASM
(Artisanal & Small-
scale Mining)
7
8
Artisanal & Small-Scale Mining
Bigger industry than you may think:

ASM Share (%) of Global Mineral
• 20,000,000 directly employed Production (ICMM 2012)
2005 Artisanal Gold
30
Production (Tonnes)
Columbia 21.6
25
20
Mexico
Ghana
7.4
6.9 15
3TG
10 “Conflict
Brazil 6.1
minerals”
Tanzania 5.0 5
Bolivia 3.5 0
Papua New Guinea 3.2
Rural development, alternative

livelihoods & ‘green gold’
Labour-intensive
Informal
Rudimentary tools & knowledge
Poverty-driven
Green, Fair Trade Gold
Artisanal certified ethical standard (ARM) Social & Environmental standards $ Premium
Small mining is beautiful – Marcello Veiga, UBC Professor

Placer Economics
Commodity Quantity Price ($ US) Value ($ US Million) Note
Alluvial Gold 6,300,000 ounces 1,250per ounce $ 7,875 7% of 90 Moz Hard Rock
Total (mod from USGS, WGC
etc)
Titanium 2,400,000 tonnes 900per tonne $ 2,160 High grade TiO2/FeTiO3 feed
(mod from Credit Suisse)
Zircon 1,200,000 tonnes 1,100per tonne $ 1,320
Diamonds 13,200,000 carats 300per carat $ 3,960 12% of 110 Mct gem (mod.
From Bain)
40% of 250kt est. (mod from

Tin 100,000 tonnes 25,000per tonne $ 2,500 ITRI)
$ 17,815
Also: REEs, critical metals (tungsten,coltan)

Significant Market & Good Prices
Value of Global Metal Production 2011 ($ US Billion)
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Iron 333
Gold 137
Copper 111
Silver
Potash 26
Nickel
Phosphate
Zinc
17
PGMs
Diamonds
Others
Source: ICMM 2012

19th Century Gold Rushes
Rafal Swiecki (http://www.minelinks.com/) 15

20th/21st Century Gold Rushes
Rafal Swiecki (http://www.minelinks.com/) 16

Fairbanks, 8 Moz
Nome, 6 Moz
14 mining regions
67 mining districts
Over 25 Moz historic

2014 est.
230 mines
140 operate
70,000 oz
Gold is where YOU find it
Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Pan the Creek
Portable sluice box

Historic Workings?

Hand-stacked cobbles –YES! High-grade potential
Historic cut-off grade for hand working - ground sluicing 1 opcy

Paystreak Areas
Flood Gold
False Bedrock & Paleochannels
Geophysics? Unlikely…
Ground Magnetometer – variable success, lots of false positives. Metal detecting is

a hobby.
Seismic – successful in simple, homogenous conditions (Valdez Creek 460,000

ounces placer gold) but can be expensive, complex
Ground Penetrating Radar – Same, but less success
LIDAR – Useful in characterizing geomorphology and locating features (channels,

terraces, historic workings) but too expensive. Satellite imagery good enough.
Drilling must be done anyway, so most operators don’t bother with the distraction,
complexity, risk, and high costs. Cheap methods needed.

Geochemistry & Geomorphology
Again – not much use yet…
Geochemistry
Defining gold signatures, lode mineralization types,
spatial and temporal evolution
 Identify hard-rock lode sources
Geomorphology & Grain Morphology

Morphology: Particle Size & Shape = Distance
Magadan success  Arc GIS today?
Flume tank modelling to understand deposition
Improve knowledge of geological controls, better models
White Channel Gravels in Yukon

Panning
with a
Batea
Then,
drilling &
bulk
sampling
Portable Highbanker
Up to 1 m3 samples
1.5” Pump

Pan Color Count
Estimating Particle Mass Using Size Classification

Blue is Best
Color Abbreviati Mass (mg) Description
Category on
Micro- Mf 0.03 (30 = 1 mg) Cannot see 30cm away, must squint close-up;
flyspeck fine dust; flat and flaky
Flyspeck F 0.1 (10 = 1mg) Specks visible 30cm away; flat or flaky
A Colour A 1-2 ~1mm diameter, ball-point pen sized
B Colour B 2-5 Up to ~2mm, elongate or spherical in 3
dimensions
C Colour C 5-25 Up to 3mm, smaller than pea grain, clunk
sound
Nugget Nug +25, weigh Heft in hand
individually
31
Grades and Resources
• Measured in volume not • 500 – 500,000 ounces

tonnage • 10,000 – 100,000 oz
• Square ft. of bedrock
• Depth?
• LOW GRADE: • How much overburden-muck?
• 0.3g/m3……………0.01 oz/yd • 0 – 200 feet, 1000 ft.???
(equivalent to 0.1 – 0.2 gpt ore) • Frozen or thawed?
• $10 per yard • Multiple paystreaks?
• Fineness (850? 950? 700?) • Old workings?
• Cut-off pan: 2 mg • Clay? Boulders?
• 20 flyspecks, or:
• 1 – 2 ‘A’ colours, or: • Fine grained or nugget, flat or
• 1 ‘B’ colour, or:
round grains?
• 60 micro-flyspecks

Camm 1988
Placer Deposit Classification
Traditional classification based on environmental process nearest lode source:
• Eluvial & Coluvial

• Fluvial, Bench & Terrace
• Buried Channels
• Alluvial Fan, Floodplains

• Beach Strandline & Marine
• Rare: Desert, Glacial, Coastal Aeolian
Russian Classification: Gradient-Geomorphological & Aggradational-Degradational

(energy systems)  + 25 depositional categories

34
Eluvial Colluvial
• Weathering/Leaching in-situ on hill • Located at base of hill slopes
slopes and outcrops
• Downslope movement of weathered
• Rain, wind, percolating waters, heat, rock, wind, rain, freeze-frost action
chemical and biological degradation
• Poorly sorted and erratic grade and
• Upgrading through removal of size distribution
soluble minerals or sheet flow
• Rarely economic
• Mkuvia placers in Southern Tanzania?

Fluvial, Bench & Terrace: Stream Placers
Classic, most common, and most important
River, stream, creek, gulch and relicts (bench or terrace)
Lighter particles winnowed away while heavy minerals

concentrate on bedrock, or
• inside bends and areas of lower velocity-pressure -gradient
• Crevices, boulders and other natural traps
Slatey, vertical bedrock good; rough & irregular good.
Usually formed within few kilometers of source rock

• Grain morphology and inclusions to relate placer to lode (R.
Chapman, Mortenson, etc.)
With distance, particle sizes reduce and sorting improves,

UNLESS it is re-worked, glaciated, or disturbed

36
Typical Profile

Waterfalls…Rarely
Gold Rush ‘Glory Hole’ Fail

Deep, Buried Channels
• Can be High Grade!!!
• Valdez Creek, Alaska 1981
• Most productive in N. America

• 100,000 oz Au/year
• 9 year mine life
• 10 oz/yd3
• 15 ft. pay sections
• Formed by Alaska Range uplift
causing southward stream
migration
• Seismic survey and drilling
discovered channel at 165 ft.

40
Alluvial Fan
• Aggradational placer - depositing
high-grade pay into thick section of
low-grade pay (100 ft. +)
• Patchwork of lenses and highly
erratic local concentrations  Bulk
• Little Squaw, Alaska Canyon, Bench
and Alluvial Fan
• 200,000 oz Au @ 0.02 oz/yd3
• 200 ft. thick but 100 ft. till overburden

41
Beach Strandline & Marine
• Sorting action of waves, tides, currents and winds concentrating heavies along lines
• Offshore deposits scoured by glaciers, sorted by tides, concentrated in storms and re-worked by
fluvial processes
• Nome Coastal Plain, Alaska  Anglogold Ashanti
• Discovered 1899, hand-miners 1-5 oz/day from beach
• 5-6 M oz historical production
• Current resource: .5 - 2.5 M oz @ 0.002 oz/yd3

42
Marine Offshore - Nome

43
Other Placer Types
• Desert – wind principal transport & concentration agent although flash flooding
can locally enrich
• Most scams occur in the desert (stay away from Arizona!)
• Glacial – rare economic concentrations

• Unsorted, unstratified, high-clay
• Moraines, tills and shorelines
• Yukon, but nothing significant in Alaska
• Coastal Aeolian – sand dune systems

• Richards Bay (ilmenite, rutile, zircon)

44
TOP: 20 g gold nugget within 1 tonne gravel  sample #1 = 0 g/t  sample #2 = 40 g/t
UNREPRESENTATIVE
BOTTOM: 20g gold dust within 1 tonne gravel  both sub-samples = 20 g/t
Heterogeneity and Nugget Effect
Proportion of Ore Mineral versus Homogeneity
Fans, Nuggety AD
Low Terraces D V
Flood- Creeks
plains, VS
Offshore n
SS
Proportion of Ore Mineral
n
Ni
PC
U
B
P
Fe
C
High
E
High Homogeneity Low
E= Evaporite; C= Coal; Fe= Bedded Iron Ore; P=Phosphate; B=Bauxite; PbZn=Stratiform lead-zinc;
Ni=Stratiform Ni; SSn=Stratiform tin; PC=Porphyry Copper; VSn=Tin veins; V=Gold, Silver veins; U=Uranium;
D=Diamonds; AD=alluvial diamonds (After Haddon King et al 1980) Source: King, McMahon & Bujtor CRA
(Australia) 1980
47
How Do You Raise Finance? Ex: Petropavlovsk
Equivalent ‘ore’ grades: 0.1 - 0.18 g/tonne

Disposed assets for $25 M b/c high alluvial cash costs  $1,319/oz
Exploration Methods - Drilling
Banka Hammer & RAB Hammer
Auger RC Sonic
Churn Double Cased
Which one do you choose?
Boart Longyear Sonic
• 3in. – 12in. (8in. Minimum in >60 mesh)
• $5/ft - $90/ft
• Penetration rate – gold loss/migration –
recovery -
Mini-Auger
Banka

49
Sample Processing - Mini Washplant
Goldfields Prospector

50
Laboratory
De-mag concentrates, classify Clean, dry and weigh gold (milligrams)

Mobile Lab
Scale in
mg
Special
clean-up
pans

Bulk Sampling – Pilot Production
Representative samples (1 to 5,000 m3)
Detailed geology, stratigraphy, mineralogy
Simple model
PSD
Optimize

Channel – Gulch Section

Alluvial Fan Section

Methods
Equipment
Washplants

Underground Placer Mining – 1900s Fairbanks
Thawing Frozen Gravels in
Narrow, High-Grade Paystreaks

1. Remove forest & thaw 4. Mining paydirt
2. Strip black muck loess 5. Processing plant - discharging into
(save for final restoration) settling pond(s)
3. Strip overburden gravel 6. Restored area
Hydraulicking – 1.5 Billion cubic yards in California
Blue Babe – baby mammoth

John Miscovich - Legend
Hydraulicking Intelli-giant – automatic monitor

Baker Family – Mudminers in Tofty

Dragline Mining

Don’t Tangle the Cable on the Spool!

Skyline-Drag System, Nome

Bucket-Ladder Dredge
Problems: Over 100 in AK
Continuous,
Water high volume
Mercury, then
Climate trapezoidal jigs
Davidson Ditch – 90 mile pipeline (1920)

Steam Fields – Cold Water Saved Alaska

The Tweet Dredge +110 Years Operation

Bima Dredge, Nome
1987 – 1990
World’s largest dredge
Marine deposits
118,000 ounces
Built for Malaysian Tin

Failed due to severe
conditions – Arctic
Storms!!!

Marine Mining: New
Techniques & Technologies
All the Time

Pomrenke Dredge

The Future: Jack-up Barge (from Namibia Al. D.)

Other Techniques
Ross-box
Suction Dredging
Reverse spirals
Hydro-clean

New-Zealand Type Dredge – A Model Mine
1. Strip topsoil
2. Push overburden
3. Basic equipment:
1. 40t ext x 2
2. D6 dozer or 920
FEL & 40t truck
4. 2-man operation
1. Backhoe Feed
2. Ancillary (Tails,
Strip, Fuel, etc.)
5. Convey tails
6. Place overburden
Floating Washplant 7. Reclaim topsoil
8. Natural revegetation
Fed from Land < 2 years
9. Farmland restored!

N.L. Wimmler (1927) – Review of Placer Mining
Methods and Costs
Few Good Miners
Time for a Revision!

Tools of the Trade – Basic Equipment
FEL versatility
D11 – 11 tonne push
40 t Excavator
‘backhoe’

Derocker

Home-made trammel with hopper, punch plant,
forklift/truck tires & sluice boxes
Double-deck screen
Coarse rock conveyor
Even feed distribution to sluices
Sluice Box Riffles
Angle Iron – Coarse Au
Expanded Metal – Fine Au

Miners Moss – 3M Nomad Carpetting

Ground-breaking Sluice & Riffle Design
Randy Clarkson
• Riffle Spacing
• Feed Rates
• Riffle Types (Angle
Iron, Flat Bar,
Expanded Metal)
• Matting
• Oscillation
• Hydraulic Riffles
• Punch-Plate
• Triple-Run Box
• Pre-Screening 85
Gold Wheels - Toy

Jigs, Centrifuges, Bowls & Tables
88

Transporting Gold

Barry Clay with the 294oz
Centennial Nugget found
Advice whilst on his dozer!!!
1. Maintenance, Maintenance, Maintenance!
2. Do Not Fire Assay Placer Gold
3. Washplant Design – K.I.S.S.
4. Coarse Gold ≠ Fine Gold
5. Sampling Evidence and Production History

90
Concurrent
Reclamation
Best Practice

2014 Indictment at Platinum Creek Mine
I blame the Aussies

Closure & Marketing
• Turbidity – Settling Ponds Required!
• Keep it Safe & Stable – Wetlands & Moose Pasture
• Mercury unnecessary; retort  Green Gold, Ethical Jewelry
• Heritage & Tourism
• Nugget prices 3x for jewelery
94

A Great Read – A Mining Legend
Resources – thank you
Websites
• Alaska Gold Forum
http://bb.bbboy.net/alaskagoldforum
• AMDS Prospecting Forum
http://www.akmining.biz/forums/forum.html
• ICMJ Prospecting & Mining Journal Forum
http://forum.icmj.com/
• Canadian Prospector’s Forum
http://gpex.ca/smf/index.php
• World Placer Journal http://www.mine.mn/
• New 49’ers Forum http://www.goldgold.com/
Books
• Wells, John. Placer Examination
• MacDonald, Eoin. Alluvial Mining
• IMM. Alluvial Mining Conference Proceedings
1990
• M.I.R.L. Reports & Alaska Placer Conference
Proceedings
95
Gold in Cornwall (Simon Camm)
University of Leeds Placer Mineral Group (Rob Chapman): http://see-web-01.leeds.ac.uk/misc/miner/
97
99
Pandora’s Inn

101

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Dylan McFarlane

5-10 minutes education - 30 minutes drama

Yukon miners better

Peruvian Chacras -“gold farms”

Las Medulas in Northern Spain, mined 25 a.d.

Bigger industry than you may think:

Rural development, alternative

Small mining is beautiful – Marcello Veiga, UBC Professor

40% of 250kt est. (mod from

Also: REEs, critical metals (tungsten,coltan)

Source: ICMM 2012

Rafal Swiecki (http://www.minelinks.com/) 15

Rafal Swiecki (http://www.minelinks.com/) 16

Over 25 Moz historic

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Portable sluice box

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Ground Magnetometer – variable success, lots of false positives. Metal detecting is

Seismic – successful in simple, homogenous conditions (Valdez Creek 460,000

Ground Penetrating Radar – Same, but less success

LIDAR – Useful in characterizing geomorphology and locating features (channels,

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Geomorphology & Grain Morphology

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Estimating Particle Mass Using Size Classification

• Measured in volume not • 500 – 500,000 ounces

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

• Eluvial & Coluvial

• Alluvial Fan, Floodplains

Russian Classification: Gradient-Geomorphological & Aggradational-Degradational

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Lighter particles winnowed away while heavy minerals

Usually formed within few kilometers of source rock

With distance, particle sizes reduce and sorting improves,

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Gold Rush ‘Glory Hole’ Fail

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

• Valdez Creek, Alaska 1981

• Most productive in N. America

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

• Glacial – rare economic concentrations

• Coastal Aeolian – sand dune systems

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Equivalent ‘ore’ grades: 0.1 - 0.18 g/tonne

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Detailed geology, stratigraphy, mineralogy

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Blue Babe – baby mammoth

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim

Prospect Explore & Develop Mining Reclaim