The Sunburst Mining Company of Arkansas has been working a desert site along the upper edge of a shallow quaternary cauldron in western New Mexico, just east of the AZ state line. They seem to be spending a lot of money, and no one wants to say much about what they are getting except that it is mostly platinum with about a third gold and a bit of silver.

The operation is expanding rapidly, even with gold prices where they are. The machinery is pretty simple, what of it is visible. They are digging out a pink material which they seem to be running through a classifier and a ball mill, then taking it back to some large closed buildings for further treatment.

I've sampled around the other edges of the cauldron outside their claim, and if there's anything there, it must be disguised and microscopic beyond the hopes of a 30X field loupe.

The whole basin they are located in is a quaternary volcano field which had a 100k eruption cycle. The basin is covered with these cauldrons which are mostly on BLM land.

I've wondered about what the likelihood is they are getting anything worthwhile, despite their growth and despite the fact they are buying a lot of private land nearby.

Not too far away there was a much older gold mine (last century) in another cauldron of similar age, just north of Hell Roaring Mesa out of Luna. It's now a small lake. I haven't found anyone who knows what type of gold they were getting out of there.

Any of you know anything about this type of deposition, how it was likely formed, (evidently hydrothermal), or any comments about Sunburst? Or anything else related to this subject?

Regards, Jack