black sand clean up

[M3R1IN]

I was out prospecting in Montana last weekend
and there was this old guy who just showed up and started sluicing upstream from me a ways
He seemed friendly so i decided to go chat with him
he gave me a lot of useful info and let me pick his brain about the local geography and different techniques
he saw that i had a large amount of black sand and said i should take some nitric acid to that and i would be amazed at how much gold would release from the lot. I explained that i am canadian and that nitric acid and mercury are very difficult to obtain here without a business licence
I am wondering on procedure for cleaning black sands with nitric acid and if anyone knows any industrial applications for nitric acid
whereby i could obtain it with less difficulty?
thanks

 

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[chlsbrns]

Gezzz only $60 million worth of gold on the property. Barely worth the effort. Not! Most real mining companies will mine property with as little as .5ppm (1/2 gram/ton) thats from memory a while back.

Quote: "In 72 days of bulk sample testing we recovered over 300 ounces of gold"

Quote: "after taking all visible gold out contain extremely high micron gold values with assays in the 50 to 100 ounce per ton area. These micron gold values are on top of the 1.8 gram geologist tested grade"

Their sluice is doing better than ayuyou's it's only leaving behind 50 to 100oz per ton.

 

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[Clay Diggins]

chlsbrns you should buy into this mine. It's a non starter at 1.8 grams per meter[SUP]3[/SUP] but with your extensive knowledge of burlap bag mining getting that other .2 grams should be a breeze. I wonder if the seller would gift you the concentrates so you could make money above your purchase price in the process. Instant profit!

Just remember that a 50% interest includes a 50% share of the losses and expenses as well as 50% of the "profits".

Now a word about assays...

I've seen hundreds of assays that indicate many ounces per ton/yard. The quality of the assay results are often skewed by mines that bring their best ore for testing.

Placer assays are not done on small samples in the industry because there is no way to avoid the "nugget effect". Lab assays are not used for placer material. Just one small particle of free gold will send the assay results through the roof. Lab assays can only be used to determine the relative purity of the bulk placer gold being mined.

This assay was not only performed on a very small sample but it was also done on higrade material. By definition concentrates from a miller table are higrade.

The proper way of sampling a placer is by defined grid bulk sampling. Nuggets are removed from the results to smooth the numbers so they can be verified in each sample run. The 300 ounces already mined in 2013 don't have a reference to the amount of raw material mined or what the grid/sample frequency was so the 1.8 gram results are very suspect. You would need to know the amount of material mined, the defined area and the "smoothed" results of the gold recovered to know the actual reserves.

There is a lot more to understanding the value of a placer deposit than a single assay on higrade concentrates. A good start would be downloading, reading and understanding the 10 Mb PDF book "Placer Examination, Principles and Practice" from the Land Matters Mining Library.

Heavy Pans

 

[chlsbrns]

chlsbrns you should buy into this mine. It's a non starter at 1.8 grams per meter[SUP]3[/SUP] but with your extensive knowledge of burlap bag mining getting that other .2 grams should be a breeze. I wonder if the seller would gift you the concentrates so you could make money above your purchase price in the process. Instant profit!

Just remember that a 50% interest includes a 50% share of the losses and expenses as well as 50% of the "profits".

Now a word about assays...

I've seen hundreds of assays that indicate many ounces per ton/yard. The quality of the assay results are often skewed by mines that bring their best ore for testing.

Placer assays are not done on small samples in the industry because there is no way to avoid the "nugget effect". Lab assays are not used for placer material. Just one small particle of free gold will send the assay results through the roof. Lab assays can only be used to determine the relative purity of the bulk placer gold being mined.

This assay was not only performed on a very small sample but it was also done on higrade material. By definition concentrates from a miller table are higrade.

The proper way of sampling a placer is by defined grid bulk sampling. Nuggets are removed from the results to smooth the numbers so they can be verified in each sample run. The 300 ounces already mined in 2013 don't have a reference to the amount of raw material mined or what the grid/sample frequency was so the 1.8 gram results are very suspect. You would need to know the amount of material mined, the defined area and the "smoothed" results of the gold recovered to know the actual reserves.

There is a lot more to understanding the value of a placer deposit than a single assay on higrade concentrates. A good start would be downloading, reading and understanding the 10 Mb PDF book "Placer Examination, Principles and Practice" from the Land Matters Mining Library.

Heavy Pans

Quote: "when it comes to mining, ore with grades of gold as little as 0.5 parts per million can be economically mined. Because ore grades of 30 ppm are usually needed before gold is visible to the naked eye, gold in most mines is invisible"

Gold Grain Morphology: Valuable Method in Gold Exploration - Investing News Network

 

[Jason in Enid]

Quote: "when it comes to mining, ore with grades of gold as little as 0.5 parts per million can be economically mined. Because ore grades of 30 ppm are usually needed before gold is visible to the naked eye, gold in most mines is invisible"

Gold Grain Morphology: Valuable Method in Gold Exploration - Investing News Network

You're taking your mining advice from random websites? Figured as much.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Quote: "when it comes to mining, ore with grades of gold as little as 0.5 parts per million can be economically mined. Because ore grades of 30 ppm are usually needed before gold is visible to the naked eye, gold in most mines is invisible"

Gold Grain Morphology: Valuable Method in Gold Exploration - Investing News Network

Great source! I knew you and Google could come up with a web page to support your theory.

The fact is your source is a marketing piece from five years ago for Diamonds North (TSXV: DDN) which has a stock value of - 0. But it was acquired by Uranium North Resources Corp in 2013. Uranium North Resources Corp also has a stock value of - 0. Of all it's associated companies the most valuable one is trading at 2 cents. All of the Uranium North Resources Corp companies have proven resources of - you guessed it - 0.

These are failed penny stocks on the Canadian TSX. I gave you the 209 page main resource for determining placer deposit market values in the United States and you counter with part of a sentence from a five year old sales piece for a failed penny stock Junior?

I realize you are a young inexperienced miner so I'm giving you some slack. If you want to learn about real life mining you might consider trying to understand the subject materials available rather than trying to prove your youth and inexperience to be superior to established knowledge and working operations.

I have no doubt, as you mature, you will have a lot to offer the mining profession if you decide to pursue your current interests. You are a bright young woman, we can use all of those we can get.

Until you gain that maturity and experience please temper your eagerness with some real world knowledge. A good place to start would be to browse through the Land Matters Library. There are some very well researched books in there that can help you in your education. If you don't see something you think would benefit land researchers please contact Land Matters and let them know what you want. They are very resourceful and particularly eager to help the next generation of land users.

Heavy Pans

 

[Duckshot]

Alexias?

 

[chlsbrns]

Great source! I knew you and Google could come up with a web page to support your theory.

The fact is your source is a marketing piece from five years ago for Diamonds North (TSXV: DDN) which has a stock value of - 0. But it was acquired by Uranium North Resources Corp in 2013. Uranium North Resources Corp also has a stock value of - 0. Of all it's associated companies the most valuable one is trading at 2 cents. All of the Uranium North Resources Corp companies have proven resources of - you guessed it - 0.

These are failed penny stocks on the Canadian TSX. I gave you the 209 page main resource for determining placer deposit market values in the United States and you counter with part of a sentence from a five year old sales piece for a failed penny stock Junior?

I realize you are a young inexperienced miner so I'm giving you some slack. If you want to learn about real life mining you might consider trying to understand the subject materials available rather than trying to prove your youth and inexperience to be superior to established knowledge and working operations.

I have no doubt, as you mature, you will have a lot to offer the mining profession if you decide to pursue your current interests. You are a bright young woman, we can use all of those we can get.

Until you gain that maturity and experience please temper your eagerness with some real world knowledge. A good place to start would be to browse through the Land Matters Library. There are some very well researched books in there that can help you in your education. If you don't see something you think would benefit land researchers please contact Land Matters and let them know what you want. They are very resourceful and particularly eager to help the next generation of land users.

Heavy Pans

Hahaha! I've been mining since I was a child. In other words my whole life. Multiple families live a good life from mining. As far as what % of gold is profitable... Search the net! There are plenty of mining operations mining at 0.50ppm.

East Manhattan Wash - Mining Technology

Oh well, im not getting in another cat fight with any of you! I won't waste my time!

 

[Jason in Enid]

 

[Goldwasher]

Plenty. . Lol

 

[Goldwasher]

Don't break my balls Barry this is from The GOOGLE!!!!!!!!!!!What is the Cost of Mining Gold? - Visual Capitalist

 

[Goldwasher]

https://srsroccoreport.com/gold-mining-industry-fuel-costs-explode-in-a-decade/

Mines aren't running at sub $35.00 a metric ton....that doesn't even pay for the dude that has to change tires!!!!!
At more than $100.00 per ton for fuel costs....maybe those engineers are trying to figure out how to make their tires out of burlap and Crisco....the efficiency would go through the ROOOOF!!!!!!

 

[chlsbrns]

https://srsroccoreport.com/gold-mining-industry-fuel-costs-explode-in-a-decade/

Mines aren't running at sub $35.00 a metric ton....that doesn't even pay for the dude that has to change tires!!!!!
At more than $100.00 per ton for fuel costs....maybe those engineers are trying to figure out how to make their tires out of burlap and Crisco....the efficiency would go through the ROOOOF!!!!!!

Let's see... An article about the cost of fuel that shows fuel costs of $3.25 per gram of gold in 2013 shows that mines are not mining at $35/ton? Hummmm.... Ok!

Lets see $3.25 fuel costs per gram of gold/gold worth $36.66/gram correct?

That was in 2013 when diesel cost $3.92/gallon its about $2.47/gallon now.

Im really dumb! Can anyone tell me the cost now that diesel costs $1.45 less per gallon? Isnt that 47% less?

The article is also about the largest mining companies. Smaller mines are not using the same fuel guzzling equipment so their expenses are less.

 

[nh.nugget]

Here we go AGAIN!

 

[chlsbrns]

Here we go AGAIN!

No I'm done. I won't waste my time! They can all post misinformation or mislead others. I'll let the thread go back on topic!

 

[Clay Diggins]

Let's see... An article about the cost of fuel that shows fuel costs of $3.25 per gram of gold in 2013 shows that mines are not mining at $35/ton? Hummmm.... Ok!

Im really dumb! Can anyone tell me the cost now that diesel costs $1.45 less per gallon? Isnt that 47% less?

I'll show you the real math behind mining and then you won't be so "really dumb"

In 2013 the average price of diesel was $3.92 a gallon.
Today the average price of diesel is $2.52 a gallon.

Diesel is now 64% the price it was in 2013.

All things being equal mining costs should be less right?

But all things aren't equal. The miner's expense for one fuel product may have gone down but many other prices may have gone up.

Then there is the simple matter of profit.

In 2013 gold was selling for $1672 an ounce. With an average cost of production of $598 dollars an ounce that leaves $1074 an ounce profit.

Today gold is selling for $1141 an ounce. With an average cost of production of $598 dollars an ounce that leaves $543 an ounce profit.

Profit (ROI) in 2015 is HALF (50%) of what it was in 2013 for the same mining system.

A piddly little $1.40 a gallon break in fuel costs isn't even going to come close to making up for the 50% loss in overall profit.

Of course that's just an example of calculating the real costs of production. Mining is way more complex than counting all your gold as profit minus the cost of fuel.

Math lesson over. It's Sunday. Go play with your friends. If you don't have any friends go play with yourself.

Heavy Pans

 

[chlsbrns]

I'll show you the real math behind mining and then you won't be so "really dumb"

In 2013 the average price of diesel was $3.92 a gallon.
Today the average price of diesel is $2.52 a gallon.

Diesel is now 64% the price it was in 2013.

All things being equal mining costs should be less right?

But all things aren't equal. The miner's expense for one fuel product may have gone down but many other prices may have gone up.

Then there is the simple matter of profit.

In 2013 gold was selling for $1672 an ounce. With an average cost of production of $598 dollars an ounce that leaves $1074 an ounce profit.

Today gold is selling for $1141 an ounce. With an average cost of production of $598 dollars an ounce that leaves $543 an ounce profit.

Profit (ROI) in 2015 is HALF (50%) of what it was in 2013 for the same mining system.

A piddly little $1.40 a gallon break in fuel costs isn't even going to come close to making up for the 50% loss in overall profit.

Of course that's just an example of calculating the real costs of production. Mining is way more complex than counting all your gold as profit minus the cost of fuel.

Math lesson over. It's Sunday. Go play with your friends. If you don't have any friends go play with yourself.

Heavy Pans

Why do I keep replying to this crap Poor gold mines only profiting $500+ per oz! Profit is profit! Many mines can and do hold quantities of gold until a rise in price. They can afford to do that. Thats what we do!

64% reduction in fuel prices/50% reduction in profits is a bad thing? Hummmm.... Ok!

Oh well back to playing with myself!

 

[chlsbrns]

Ok lets go back on topic! The most effective way that we get gold from black sands is:

We use a cone bottom tank. We add water, cons and lye. Then we create a vortex. The lye removes any oil that may be on the gold. If you aren't aware oil sticks to gold. The amount of lye is dependent on the amount of water in your tank. If you are doing spoon fulls of cons a capped funnel will work or even a gold pan!

Then we drain and rinse.

DO NOT MIX LYE WITH PEROXIDE! THE FUMES CAN CAUSE YOUR SKIN TO FALL OFF LIKE MELTED WAX! WHEN YOU RINSE THE LYE RINSE IT GOOD!

Then we add water and hydrogen peroxide. Again the amount depends on the amount of water and the strength/percent of the peroxide. We create a vortex for a little while. The peroxide will remove any sulfide coating. A sulfide coating will prevent the gold from being absorbed in mercury. Sulfides in the water will also spoil the mercury and prevent it from absorbing gold. It also prevents the mercury from splitting into tiny beads.

After cleaning the gold with peroxide we add the mercury to the water/peroxide and get the vortex going again for a period of time. A strong vortex is not required. The vortex will drive all of the cons and water into contact with the mercury.

Drain the mercury from the bottom of the tank and retort it all! Do not squeeze it thru a cloth. If you squeeze it thru a cloth much of the micronic gold will also pass thru the cloth.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Why do I keep replying to this crap Poor gold mines only profiting $500+ per oz! Profit is profit! Many mines can and do hold quantities of gold until a rise in price. They can afford to do that. Thats what we do!

64% reduction in fuel prices/50% reduction in profits is a bad thing? Hummmm.... Ok!

Gold miners sell forward gold production in hard times. It's called hedging and I've been doing it, when needed, since the early 70's. A miner's "book" includes those hedges as part of their accounting. The hedge is paid off in physical gold or it is "rolled over" until it can be closed. Hedges are a significant cost factor in commercial mines when metal prices are falling. Leverage works both ways and the only reasonable response to a 50% drop in return is to close the mine until prices rise. In the meantime the hedge account margin calls drain the miner's cash reserves. Miner's sell gold and keep cash reserves with one exception. It's obvious that you don't understand mine financing.

If you did the math you would see that it was a 36% reduction in fuel costs and a 50% reduction in profit. If you aren't going to read the explanation then it will only be useful for others reading here.

Heavy Pans

 

[chlsbrns]

Gold miners sell forward gold production in hard times. It's called hedging and I've been doing it, when needed, since the early 70's. A miner's "book" includes those hedges as part of their accounting. The hedge is paid off in physical gold or it is "rolled over" until it can be closed. Hedges are a significant cost factor in commercial mines when metal prices are falling. Leverage works both ways and the only reasonable response to a 50% drop in return is to close the mine until prices rise. In the meantime the hedge account margin calls drain the miner's cash reserves. Miner's sell gold and keep cash reserves with one exception. It's obvious that you don't understand mine financing.

If you did the math you would see that it was a 36% reduction in fuel costs and a 50% reduction in profit. If you aren't going to read the explanation then it will only be useful for others reading here.

Heavy Pans

Instead of posting nonsense why don't you go back on topic and tell everyone how you get the micronic gold from your black sands?

We will keep mining and stockpile gold until a rise in price. We don't close down or sell for dollars. Why sell low for cash when you do not need cash? It's nonsense! I doubt that many here have to even think about it anyway. If they mined for a living they would know better!

 

[Clay Diggins]

Instead of posting nonsense why don't you go back on topic and tell everyone how you get the micronic gold from your black sands?

W

We will keep mining and stockpile gold until a rise in price. We don't close down or sell for dollars. Why sell low for cash when you do not need cash? It's nonsense! I doubt that many here have to even think about it anyway. If they did they would know nonsense!

I guess an iPhone would seem like nonsense to an 18th century man. It's all a matter of experience - or no experience in this case.

The simple fact that you don't grasp a complex concept does not make it nonsense. If you spent any of the time you use to try to prove your theories correct on actually researching things like hedging or ROI or commercial micron gold recovery you would appear much more intelligent and you would actually gain knowledge. As it stands you would offer us greasy burlap and poor math skills.

I don't bother with micron gold because there is no profit in it for the small miner. My break even begins at 3 grams a yard processed with well established but customized commercial methods. 1.8 grams a yard is unprofitable for a small miner. Only huge mining companies and recreational "miners" bother with trying to recover invisible gold. Both have good reasons for doing so. One for profit and the other for enjoyment.

If you are going to pretend to instruct miners on mining I think you need to bring more to the discussion than a picture of a gold button and some google links. Please share real stuff like material worked, method of working, amount and percentage of recovered metals and return on investment including all costs. If you want others to learn from your superior knowledge you will need to give us more than an attitude. Otherwise you might as well pay the $20 vig and join the others arguing over on the Members Only political forum.

Heavy Pans