Gold, Copper, Zinc, Silver Sitting on the Corner in Arizona

One day it's warm, the next
it's freezing - isn't
Wyoming great!

Just returned from gold consulting projects in Wyoming and California. Really enjoyed the time in Wyoming; seeing my kids and searching for additional gold resources in an area I explored years ago for the Wyoming Geological Survey and University of Wyoming. Typical of Wyoming, there are more cows than people, with a country side wide open to a non-stop, near hurricane-force winds. And yes, they really have a wind festival in Wyoming! 

When I arrived in early October, one day it was warm - the next I dressed like an Eskimo. Sometimes I forget how much I love geology and Wyoming, but periodically, companies hire me because of my reputation of finding mineral deposits - am ability I feel is the result of my curiosity to see what's on the other side of the hill and an optimistic attitude when it comes to searching for mineral deposits (just the opposite of my impression of government).

Exploring a 2 million-ounce gold-copper
deposit at the Copper King mine, Silver
Crown district near Cheyenne, Wyoming
in 2012. This area has very good gold
 potential along with possible nearby
 diamond deposits.

I love geology, but have a serious problem with bureaucrats. Don't like them as they are 99.9% worthless and take up way too much space. Never could find any use for unproductive people who live to cause problems for those who actually work and pay for their salaries.

Every time I think of politicians - I laugh (or cry). From the President to the city manager: they are all in somebody's pockets - take Biden for example - please! Don't you love how he, obama and clinton bow to Chinese and Arab investors and how easily they bribe Biden and his gang. So, Darwin's theory needs a major revision - evolution has little to do with survival of the fittest. If he were right, how could those who are least productive run our government. Isn't it time we, the people, required all persons running for office to have had a least one job - other than working as a pimp, used car salesman, alien, and receiving Noble Prizes for doing nothing other than getting elected or plagiarizing images for global warming films. If you have time, email the Noble Prize committee and let them know we do not appreciate them playing jokes on us by giving away the prize for doing nothing. 

If automated lie detectors (ALD) were attached to TV sets to detect lies by politicians, your TV would catch fire every time a politician makes a speech. If any politician ever told the truth, we should declare a national holiday. Take a look at Biden - has he ever told the truth about anything?

Gold King mine in California in 2012. A nifty gold mine.

While Obama was out golfing, I was talking to a friend (a golfer) who noted that golfing takes an entire day. So, if we assume a 5 day work week, Obama spent 5 months of his presidency golfing (and who knows how much more on vacation). This means, 12% of his presidency was devoted just to golfing while the rest of us were losing savings, homes, lives in Afghanistan and being strangled by obamacare.

Think obamacare is good? How come every friend of obama received a waiver along with every congressman or senator. Oh I know, they just wanted to put us first before their needs. So, if obamacare is so good how come nancy pelosi and harry reid did not sign up for this fabulous obamacare? We should all march on Washington and require all of these political scumbags to live under the same laws as the people who pay their wages (excluding bribes).

Then there is Al Gore (or cousin Al as we called him in Laramie). Talk about Global Warming, I wish I could have attached that ALD to his ear lobes and watched the TV melt at the Cowboy Bar as he told us about an earth, completely free of glaciers, by 2013. 



Sign displayed in Tombstone, AZ

When politicians talk about dwindling natural resources, the ALD goes into overtime. These people are just silver-tongue used car salesmen  with little intellect and little comprehension of the truth. Their brains are in their mouths. 

Let's look at our natural resources. Not so long ago, we were running out of oil. But as soon as geologists have money in their budgets, plenty of natural resources are found. It's because we have barely touched our natural resources in the US let alone the world. Take a look at oil and gas - we needed some, so geologists went out and found new deposits. We now have enough to keep us occupied for centuries without having to import anything from the Saudis. So why do we still have to  import? Because government leaders (remember those used car salesmen?) are getting rich by kow-towing to the Saudis and Russians at our expense. So, what ever happened to tar and feathers?

COPPER MINE on Interstate - 60

How about copper? Well, every time we turn our backs, someone finds another copper deposit in Arizona. Thought they were all found? No way! Not even close. I liked telling my students that for every deposit found on the surface, there are potentially hundreds of blind deposits hidden at depth from our view. But who knows, this could be much higher. All we need is incentive to search for not so easy to find deposits. Just last year, we visited the Resolution copper mine on the edge of the town of Superior Arizona. This is a giant copper-molybdenum (with a minimum of 40 billion pounds of copper) deposit with by-product gold and silver that was mined out!

Standing on the Resolution mine dump looking
at I-60 and all of the rare and unique land.

Now get this: the Superior district in Arizona has silver and a town site known as Superior was developed around the silver. This town is only 25 to 30 miles east of the Phoenix valley and sits right along I-60, and became known for silver and copper. Copper was found in 1874. The Silver Queen mine produced some ore, and years later, this mine was renamed the Magma mine as it began to produce large amounts of copper.  But it (and nearby mines) were all mined out, and the town began turning into a ghost town until someone decided to drill just a little deeper to see if anyone missed anything of value at the famous Silver Queen-Magma mine. How come they didn't try this sooner? Its because most people are pessimistic. 

Anyway, someone convinced a CEO to try drilling a little deeper at the historical Silver Queen/Magma mine (now the Resolution mine) and low and behold, they found another ore deposit that had a minimum of 1.6 billion tons of copper-molybdenum-silver-gold ore. The mine is so close to I-60, that you can stand near the head frame of the mine shaft, you can hit  I-60 with a rock! But it didn't take long. This long abandoned area was soon to be rare and valuable sacred land with a view of the interstate, needed to be protected to be sure there no jobs were created.

Not too long ago, someone found a giant of a giant copper deposit in Bristol Bay, Alaska. It is big! But instead, it will likely end up in a Biden wilderness. Why does our government do this?  What are they saving all of these mineral deposits for? 

How big is it? Well, its every bit as big as the Bingham mine in Utah (and then some). In 2008, it was estimated (based on limited drilling) that the deposit has 31-million ounces of gold (the great Homestake mine produced only 40-million ounces over a span of a hundred years. It also has a minimum of 265-million pounds of molybdenum (that's the stuff used in making steel) and a minimum of 18.8-billion pounds of copper!  That is 18,800,000,000 pounds! And the deposit could potentially produce many other by-products (i.e, silver, rhenium, palladium, zinc). It may lie near a salmon habitat, but you never know, the government bureaucrats have a way of misrepresenting facts, like they did during the Clinton Administration with a gold mine north of Yellowstone.

OTHER MINES ALONG THE ROAD

On our way to the United Verde and United Verde Extension mines in the town of Jerome adjacent to Highway 89A, this deposit was mined out and closed in 1953. Or was it? Well, ask anyone - it is all mined out!  Well, not really.

During its heyday, it produced more than 33 million tons of ore from the open pit operation (see below) with more than 81 miles (>427,000 feet) of tunnels and shafts. The ore would be worth more than $14.8 billion at 2012 prices (pre-Biden price) for copper, gold, silver and zinc. And of course, the old miners found everything?

United Verde mine - all mined out (?) at Jerome, Arizona.

During mining prior to 1953, some 'blind' deposits were found at depth. One, was the United Verde Extension mine. A group of miners explored looking for hidden treasure. When they were ready to shut down due to bankruptcy, they luckily discovered a very-rich, blind (hidden) deposit at depth.

Bisbee mine - so close to highway 80,
you can see the bottom of the open pit
as you drive by

So how many more blind deposit are to be found here? My guess would be many. If you look at Google Earth (search for Jerome, AZ) you will see a 14-mile long gossan (rusty rock) along the western edge of town that runs right through the United Verde open pit mine. Gossans are sort of rusty guides to ore deposits. The United Verde miners from the past, looked only for good, high-grade ore in the mine. In doing so, they decided not to mine any more zinc than necessary (zinc was not worth much in the old days) and thus left behind all low-grade ore unmined. This low-grade, at today's prices, is likely very valuable (imagine that, a mined out mine with 2 to 3 times as much ore left behind as was mined). One resource estimate suggested 115-million-tons of low-grade massive sulfide ore and 38-million tons of mineralized black schist was left behind with economic grades of copper, zinc, gold and silver. This low-grade was reported to also contain at least 400,000-ounces of gold. Some suggest that the gold content may be as high as one-million ounces! And what lies beneath, to the north, to the south?

Then there is Bisbee. Highway-80 runs so close to the Lavendar Open Pit mine, if you are not careful, you could actually drive into the old mine.

In an upcoming blog, I will tell you about hundreds of diamond pipes found along the interstate and US highways, giant opal deposits next to highways, gem labradorite found in road bed material and more. It is shocking what companies miss.