Fault lines lead to gold
Posted: June 14, 2013 Filed under: In the Business, News | Tags: exploration, gold, mining boom Leave a comment »
The San Andreas Fault won’t lead you to gold, but a smaller fault line just might…Image: Huffington Post
Small-scale fault systems in the Earth’s crust have a strong correlation with the location of gold, a recent study of the St Ives Goldfields in Western Australia has found.
Our research, published in science journal Ore Geology Reviews, found that all major gold deposits are controlled by faults, but small fault systems are more likely to lead to gold than larger ones.
Researcher Dr Carsten Laukamp says the relationship between fault systems and gold traces is key to understanding the genesis of gold and could be used to help locate any commodity.
“Determining the spatial relationship between geological features such as fault lines, and gold traces, is not only important to understand how deposits form, it can also guide mineral exploration because we can use this information to develop predictive mineral maps,” he says.
Predictive mineral map: reds indicate areas of high potential for gold traces and the blues represent the low potential areas.
Dr Laukamp and his team developed a predictive mineral map of the St Ives Goldfields that shows new prospective areas where there is a high likelihood that gold could be located.
“We used information such as rock type, colour, shape and size and geological boundaries – all information we can gather from drilling samples – to develop the map,” Dr Laukamp says.
“This research is one step in the development of predictive mineral maps that integrate various types of geological data.
“Next, we’ll incorporate data collected from aircrafts and satellites, such as geophysical and spectroscopic data, which will improve the information value and accuracy of the predictive mineral map.”
Learn more about our research in mineral exploration.
Media enquiries: Liz Greenbank | 03 9545 8563 | liz.greenbank@csiro.au
Termites strike gold
Posted: December 10, 2012 Filed under: News | Tags: discovery, gold, mineral exploration, resources, termites 3 Comments »
Giant Northern or Mastotermes darwiniensis worker termites.
Ant and termite nests could lead to hidden treasure according to research conducted by CSIRO.
Research published in science journals PLoS ONE and Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis, found that at a test site in the West Australian goldfields termite mounds contained high concentrations of gold. This gold indicates there is a larger deposit underneath.
“We’re using insects to help find new gold and other mineral deposits. These resources are becoming increasingly hard to find because much of the Australian landscape is covered by a layer of eroded material that masks what’s going on deeper underground,” Dr Aaron Stewart, CSIRO entomologist said.
Termites and ants burrow into this layer of material where a fingerprint of the underlying gold deposit is found, and bring traces of this fingerprint to the surface.
“The insects bring up small particles that contain gold from the deposit’s fingerprint, or halo, and effectively stockpile it in their mounds,” Dr Stewart said.
“Our recent research has shown that small ant and termite mounds that may not look like much on the surface, are just as valuable in finding gold as the large African mounds are that stand several metres tall.”
Mineral resources make up $86.7 billion of Australia’s exports and new discoveries in many commodities are required to sustain production. After 150 years of mining, gold and other mineral deposits near the surface have been discovered and miners need new tools to explore deeper underground.
Insects could provide a new, cost effective and environmentally friendly way of exploring for new mineral deposits, avoiding the traditional method of expensive and often inaccurate drilling.
Dr Stewart’s work has also found that insects carry metals in their bodies.
“We’ve found that metals accumulate in excretory systems of termites,” he said.
“Although the insects may not concentrate metals in their bodies, they actively rid their bodies of excess metals. This process shows up as little stones, much like kidney stones in people. This finding is important because these excretions are a driving force in redistribution of metals near the surface.”
Dr Stewart was selected as a finalist in this year’s Fresh Science Awards.
Media: Liz Greenbank. Mb: 0408 778 189. E: liz.greenbank@csiro.au
Worth the weight
Posted: August 16, 2012 Filed under: News | Tags: gold, minerals, Palladium, Platinum, precious metals Leave a comment »For all of our readers sporting a wedding ring, here’s an interesting little tid bit you may not know – if it’s gold, it could weigh upwards of four tonnes – that could be how much ore, or rock, was dug out of the ground and processed to produce it.
Now that the value of gold has climbed over US$1600 an ounce, just one gram of gold per tonne of ore is profitable to mine and that’s lucky for you, because ores with larger quantities of gold are much harder to find these days.
Wedding rings commonly weigh around four to five grams so at some of today’s concentrations, that means almost four tonnes of ore is processed per ring.
Gold is one of the world’s precious metals. Precious because there’s not much of it about and lots of people want it, hence the high price.
Silver is a lot cheaper, but there are almost no silver mines in Australia and it’s usually produced as a by-product from other sorts of production. For instance, natural gold nuggets are usually not pure gold, but gold alloyed with silver.
Platinum and Palladium are also precious metals, but Australia produces almost none of them. Most of the world’s Platinum and Palladium comes from South Africa.
Pure gold is surprisingly dull and lifeless, but add just a few percent of silver and it glows. That’s why pure gold is rarely used in jewellery. The measurement of purity that most of us have heard of is the carat – 18 carat gold is 75 per cent pure. So that means a quarter of your ring is made up from other metals, probably silver or copper.
So next time you look down at your ring, remember the effort and the sheer weight and volume of material that went into producing the gold to make it.
Of course, that pales into insignificance compared with what went you went through to get it in the first place.
