How will you pulverize all of that rock?
don’t laugh…sofar with a sledge hammer and various other similar
things. there is an arista (not sure if that`s correct) that needs
to be fixed and greased up, but that’s not ready yet. at least a rock
chip close to the eye convinced my friend to get a face shield an a
leather apron!
Gravity separation of gold from host rock, after pulverization is
normally done with water, using a device such as a sluice, rocker
or long tom- see here-
we can’t do that, due to the reasons you’ve already pointed out,
sulphur and mercury…I give the bright red cinnabar rocks up there a
fairly wide berth… but they do sneak in.
There is equipment that will tie down the sulphur into a stabilized
form and keep it out of the air and water but it’s more expensive
than my house with everything in it…but it looks like a technically
inclined person could build one from scratch
This would be dumping a lot of silt and sludge back into the
water, and possibly also liberating mercury and sulphides bound up
in the host rock, so engaging in this practice would likely be
counter-productive from the vantage of environmental clean-up
unless you had something set up for water filtration and
recirculation. You should also know that the ratio of precious
metals to host rock is likely way low. As in, grinding up tons of
rock in order to get an ounce of gold. In the end, the gold which
you obtained would need to be refined and alloyed before you would
be able to cast, roll or draw it and sell it as karat gold.
um, the ratio is no problem. geologists take a look at the hard ore
and go through a delightful change in facial expression and color.
the mine hasn’t been worked since the mid fifties
it is somewhere
along the turner albright line…
Your goal of environmental clean-up is laudable, but attempting to
extract the gold may do more harm than good in the big picture,
particularly when you figure in things like energy consumption and
water usage. Additionally, unless the ore is rich, you may well
not extract enough gold to be economically worthwhile.
this is not about making money, even though there is probably enough
stuff up there to improve our communitiy’s living standard. the
mountain was sacred to the local natives, and this community is quite
abit in tune with that. the old mine sites are ugly toxic leachfields
stinking of sulphur. we want to avoid some multinational coming in,
buying up the old claims and strip mining our mountain.
I guess the option of taking it to a refining shop is always there,
but they generally keep the extra fun metals for themselves…
Have you contacted the U of A Geology department? They may be able
to offer you some good guidance on how to clean up the site.
btween all the people ionvolved, we’ve read several of their
treatises. the Arizona mines have, to my knowledge more of a
phosphorus problem than a sulfur problem. the scrubbing process and
machinery is different. many thanks for your insights you instantly
hit on the main problem (sulfur) I’d love to talk with you some more
about it
Sparrow