Posted on 01/31/2009 8:28:05 AM PST by thackney
A gold discovery north of Fairbanks is among the largest worldwide in 10 years, said a mining exploration company.
International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. updated its reserves estimate on land about 70 miles north of Fairbanks.
The new estimate puts the size of the Livengood deposit at 5 million ounces of gold, but company president Jeffrey Pontius says that additional exploring could push the figure to 10 million ounces.
"We have found a really exceptional concentration of gold that Mother Nature put out there," he said. "That's a tremendous thing."
If the estimates turn out to be accurate, the gold deposit, on both state and federal land, would be larger than at least two operating Alaska mines, Pogo near Delta Junction and the Fort Knox mine near Fairbanks.
But it is dwarfed by several other exploration projects that are further along. The Donlin Creek prospect near Bethel contains nearly 30 million ounces of gold. The Pebble project, also in Southwest Alaska, contains an estimated 90 million ounces of gold. Those two prospects are in roadless areas and potentially much more difficult and costly to develop.
It will take additional exploration to learn how much of the gold at Livengood could be economically recovered and to determine the recovery method, company officials said.
Drilling will begin again in February, the company said. Economic estimates to determine how to mine the gold could be ready by July, Pontius said.
(Excerpt) Read more at adn.com ...
ROFL
A new destination for the Ice Road Truckers?
Didn’t read the whole article, is there any mention of what ore body type this is and type of mining necessary for retrieval?
I knew we should stayed in Fairbanks, instead of coming home after 5 months this summer.
Of course it is -22F there right now. And it was -49F a few weeks ago.
Maybe, on second thought, I’m glad we’re parked on Dickinson Bayou here in San Leon, TX.
It’s 61F.
A related question would be: How much silver is in that find as well?
Bluish colored silver sulfide ore is often found in the same vicinity as gold deposits, and can yield considerable marketable silver. In the early days of discovery of the Comstock Lode in California, the miners discarded tons of the stuff as a nuisance until someone found out what that blue mud really was...
Are you actually asking me to go read the article for you and tell you what it says?
I thought there were 92 naturally ocurring elements.
Nevada.
That’s why Nevada is “The Silver State”.
Good point. Uranium is number 92.
But there is one of the actinides, I think, with a strange atomic number that has never been found naturally anywhere.
I will check.
Palin’s fault!
Especially since it's in Palin-land.
Their stubby tax-pencils are undoubtedly scribbling away to find the best way to confiscate or add mucho taxes to every nugget mined out of Faribanks.
Where is Robin Hood to combat these evil taxers and to save the fair Olivia de Palin?
Leni
unobtainium?
He succumbed to poiening by governmentium.
Left full rudder!!
Gold is an element. Gotta have some to get some.
Lol!
Well, you know that there is an element that was not even discovered here!
It was discovered on the sun first, by it’s spectrographic signature. So it was named after Helios, the sun, and we called it Helium.
It does exist on the Earth in very tiny quantities, but they found it on the sun first.
That is why the Hindenburg burned. The US would not sell Helium to the Nazis, so the Nazis used hydrogen.
Kinda put the 850 billion dollar stimulus package in some perspective doesn't it. Lord help us.
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