Tailings Reprocessing: Discovering Gold The place Others Did not
Valenta defined that many older mines nonetheless comprise untapped gold – not as a result of it wasn’t there, however as a result of earlier mining strategies could not extract it effectively. He stated:
“Strategies for extracting [minerals] weren’t nearly as good as they’re now, so folks left numerous gold behind. In lots of circumstances you may return and retreat the tailings and waste from these mines to extract [even more gold].”
Which means outdated waste piles – tailings – aren’t simply garbage; fashionable chemistry and equipment can extract beforehand neglected gold, decreasing environmental influence and leveraging present infrastructure.
One frequent technique is leaching, the place an answer is used to attract out any remaining gold particles. Others use gravity separation or flotation, relying on the kind of rock and the way the gold is sure to it.
Cloncurry’s Revival
The Cloncurry area is prime floor. In keeping with Valenta, it’s “one of many particular locations on the planet that has an infinite quantity of mineral endowment.”
It already hosts the Ernest Henry Copper–Gold Mine, which accommodates round 2 million ounces of gold. Now, two firms – Orion Sources and AuKing Mining – are planning to re‑lease round 20 historic gold mines, together with the outdated Mount Freda open pit, which closed in the course of the Nineteen Nineties gold crash.
