Is it worth mining?

[mitchel112]

I have a friend in AZ. that has a old hard rock mine claim (BLM),it has three tailing mounds, he has sampled all three mounds by crushing and running on shaker table, two were no good, but the third had a average of .28 oz./ton, from twenty samples he got all over the mound. He tells me there is about 2000 tons in that third mound.

I would like some input from those on this forum. Would it be worth getting permits, paying a bond, sitting up a jaw crusher, hammer mill and shaker table on claim to process?

Bottom line can my friend and I make any money?

THANKS FOR ALL INPUT

 

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[solarsmith]

what are you going to do with the ore after its processed ? do you have a holding pond lined and ready? and is it permitted? will the blm let you put it back in the mine?
and you have only looked for the free milling gold so far! if your getting .28 opt free gold you may be passing up 3.0 opt in sulfide gold. what was the fire assay opt results? you probably started with 2 or 3 opt and washed all of the sulfide gold out of the free milling ore leaving you the .28 opt gold.

If it were me and I was in your location. I would concentrate it to be a few oz per ton or more and ship it to TCB in phoenix . Pay the bond to the blm then rehab the site that the pile was on. There are many options on how to do this . the blm can guide you on this. Bryan in Denver CO

 

[solarsmith]

more! you have 3 mounds? and one of them has free milling gold! thats great. now get fire assays on all 3 mounds. for gold and silver. the silver alone may pay for the processing. Iv been told you should stay in the prospecting phase as long as you can. and the same with the exploration phase. 2000 tons is a days run for some mills
using a gravity method is good for free milling gold only . I have seen a few notes that say the free Milling gold does not show up until the grade of ore is over 3 opt! good luck Bryan In Denver Colorado.

 

[Mad Machinist]

I have a friend in AZ. that has a old hard rock mine claim (BLM),it has three tailing mounds, he has sampled all three mounds by crushing and running on shaker table, two were no good, but the third had a average of .28 oz./ton, from twenty samples he got all over the mound. He tells me there is about 2000 tons in that third mound.

I would like some input from those on this forum. Would it be worth getting permits, paying a bond, sitting up a jaw crusher, hammer mill and shaker table on claim to process?

Bottom line can my friend and I make any money?

THANKS FOR ALL INPUT

If you want to PM me the location off list. I have most of the mineral maps for Arizona. As solarsmith said and I will back up, Most of the gold here in AZ is locked up in sulfides. Just the geology here due to MASSIVE amounts of tectonic and volcanic activity here.

 

[Mad Machinist]

.28 opt x 2000 tons equals 560 ounces of gold. And that is at 100% recovery. If you friend gets 85% of that with just the equipment you listed, then be happy. 560 X 85% equals 476 ounces times $1000 comes to $476,000 if the gold is pure (not likely) and not alloyed with something else (highly likely in AZ). So subtract the impurities from the ounces recovered.

Reclamation fees can vary. At minimum your looking at $2500 and acre. Being that this is a old hard rock on BLM land, it is going to depend on how "friendly" they are towards mining. They can turn around and claim there are additional contaminants on site that your friend would be responsible to clean up. Permits have to be spelled out VERY clearly as to what is to be done and reclaimed. I would SERIOUSLY recommend an attorney at that point.

All of this and more needs to be figured out LONG before you start mining. If not, then everything that is made can be lost up to and including any and all personal property that is owned. All to pay for "reclamation".

This is one of the bigger reasons one NEEDS to know EVERYTHING that is in the ore. Arizona is good for Arsenic. Mix arsenic laced tailings with water and let is seep into the ground and your friend is now responsible for cleaning up or paying to clean up a Superfund site.

I am not trying to dissuade you or your friend from chasing this. I am just trying to make sure your eyes are wide open on this.

There are a couple of pretty serious threads on processing sulfide based ores here. Read through them and you see what it takes to do this the right way.

 

[SaltwaterServr]

1. Assay, assay, assay.

2. You need to know what the liberation size of the freemill gold. If you can get 95% of free gold recovery by gravity separation at 45 to 75 microns, there's no reason to take it down to minus 75 initially. You can get it to 75% minus 75 microns on a secondary grind after initial crushing for leaching afterwards.

3. If you start to consider chemical leaching, know the ore inside and out. Know your % Iron, As, Hg, S, Au, Cu, Ni, and Zi. See #1 for this

4. Build your plant to your ore, not the other way around. That's a mistake people, and even the large companies will make. Again, see #1.

5. Since you're doing tailings, you might have a variety of different tailings compositions there as you progress down into the earliest portions of the mine at the bottom of the pile. You might go from refractory ores to full oxidized free mill that now requires a different crush and grind strategy. See #1.

My mining partner made the mistake of cleaning some ore in hydrogen peroxide. He spent 4 days in bed and had a strict diet to keep his kidneys from failing for the next 3 weeks. We had ore with arsenopyrite in it and the hydrogen peroxide created arsenic trioxide. If he hadn't told me what he was doing that night, he'd probably be 1) waiting for transplants or 2. be dead.

Arsenic is highly water soluble so if you start crushing those tailings and get the dust or get wet from working the shaker table, you can easily come away with arsenic poisoning.

 

[ecmjamsit]

I would try high grading it with a metal detector. Might be able to sell the ore samples for way more than the gold they contain. I have sold ore to colleges just so they can practice assaying. Good way to raise capital for further work on your mine.

 

[mitchel112]

Thanks for the input guys
I my self am new to hard rock mining, that's why I came here for input. I will be talking to my friend next week, I will ask him all these questions.
I do know he saved the sulfides from the samples, but I do not know if he had them assayed.