Diamonds, Gold, Fish, and Friends in the Seminoe Mountains of Wyoming

The Bradly Peak Hilton in the Seminoe Mountains, Wyoming

 I was awakened by a knock at my front door. Rarely do people find me in the middle of nowhere, and the only one who ever knocked prior to this visit was Wiley Coyote and his acapello cousins sharing songs with a grumpy geologist around the campfire. So yes, I was curious as to who was knocking on a door?

I climbed out of my sleeping bag and unzipped my tent flap: there were two prospectors standing outside on my brick porch, who I'd never seen before. They introduced themselves as Charlie and Donna Kortes! 

So, I stepped out of my front door and shook hands with Charlie and Donna Kortes at the front door of the Bradley Peak Hilton in the Seminoe Mountains greenstone belt in southern Wyoming. As soon as I shook Donna's hand, my cheeks turned red (yep, the ones attached to my face) - I was standing there in only my under shorts. Both Charlie and Donna turned their backs as I dove into my closet to put on my field clothes and boots.

There are all kinds of structures and geographic features in this part of Wyoming that have the namesake of Charlie and Donna Kortes - such as the Kortes Dam on the North Platte River and Charlie's Prospect in the Seminoe Mountains. These two wonderful people spent much of their lives ranching, mining and rock hounding - a great combination for two outstanding people. They wanted to take me out to show me the nearby Sunday Morning mine (often referred to as the Sunday Morning prospect). So, after yawning and clearing my eyes of the rising sun, we talked a little about rocks, about their ranch, and about how they found me. Apparently, they ran into a prospector in Sinclair Wyoming, who mentioned I was in the area - and knowing the layout of the land, they knew the best (and only) place to camp, was at Bradley Peak.

After sharing stories, they took me over to the nearby Sunday Morning mine. Charlie and Donna grabbed a couple of short aluminum ladders with bailing wire, and at the min entrance (adit), we sat down while Charlie wired the ladders together and explained there was a drop-off a short distance into the old mine. Next we walked into the mine adit (portal) to the drop off. Charlie lowered the constructed ladder down to the next level - about 8 10 feet, just enough to make it challenging to get out of the mine without the ladder. For some reason, the previous miners dug the tunnel, went straight in for a few yards, then decided to continue the tunnel 10 feet lower than the entrance. After placing the ladder, he told me to go ahead and he and Donna would wait outside for me. My thoughts ran wild - did he know something about this mine I should know? Were they going to steal my prized 1975 Ford Bronco field vehicle with 300,000 miles and my used tent and leave me here to die? Thank goodness, it was neither! The Kortes' were just being neighborly and gave me an opportunity to see this mine while they sat outside. The mine didn't have much of anything in it, and the workings followed a narrow milky-quartz-vein containing minor cuprite. After taking two samples from the mine, I believe I got the entire ore body.

Massive red cuprite with green malachite and black tenorite,
Sunday Morning mine, Seminoe Mountains

Charlie and Donna next wanted to show me a gold deposit they found in the valley north of the Seminoe Mountains near the Miracle Mile bridge west of the North Platte River. In this area, they claimed was nothing more than dirt, with sagebrush and lots of gold - so they proceeded to show me an extensive, previously unknown, dry gold placer, which I wrote about in my 2011 book on gold that I wrote years later (Hausel, W.D., and Hausel, E.J., 2011, Gold - field guide for prospectors and geologists (Wyoming and Adjacent Areas) and named it the Kortes gold placer in honor of my two new friends. 

We left Bradley Peak and drove through the sand dunes on the south side, turned north through scenic Seminoe Canyon and broke out on the north side of the range to see a very tired, worn out, desert valley (not sure if it is officially named) driving under a power line (42°11'54"N; 106°52'43"W) from Kortes Dam. The towers of the power line were located on an old alluvial surface that mostly originated from the Seminoe Mountains. We dug some dirt and took it to the bank of the North Platte River and panned tiny gold flakes from the dirt. It didn't matter where we dug in this alluvial fan, it had gold everywhere we sampled! My pan also retained some tiny, purple, pyrope garnets! I just was not expecting this!

Red cuprite in milky quartz from Sunday Morning mine

I was interested in the gold and new-found garnets. In the past, I had researched gold and diamonds deposits. During my research, I met a former Russian geoscientist living in Denver, who had access to an electron microprobe research facility in Russia  (the Wyoming Geological Survey had such a tiny budget, we couldn't afford to do this ourselves). So I gave my colleague (Dr. Erlich) the garnets and $20 from my paycheck, and weeks later,  we received news that all of the garnets from the Seminoes were 'G10' pyropes (high-Cr and -Mg garnets). G10 pyropes are chemically equivalent to pyrope garnets found as mineral inclusions within diamond! Some years ago, Dr. John Gurney from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, identified which types of garnets were associated with commercial diamond deposits - and this was one of these types of garnets! It most likely came from the diamond-stability field where the earth makes diamonds. So, if we could find the source area for the garnets, we likely would found a diamond deposit.

Gold in milky quartz (circled) from the Penn mines. A rule of thumb - whenever you see a hand specimen like these with visible gold, they will assay more than 1.0 ounce per tonne.

A few years later, I received grants for a mapping project in the Seminoes and did additional tests on other garnets I collected from the Kortes placer. Every garnet tested as G10. Even though this is was a tiny sampling of garnet, it suggests there is a diamond deposit somewhere in the area. 

Outcrop of folded banded iron formation
near the Sunday morning prospect.

As rock hounds, we should plan to spend time in the area looking for garnets in anthills. When I did a cursory survey of the area, I couldn't find any anthills. But how much gold and actual diamonds does this dirt and gravel from the alluvial fan contain? I'm not sure of the ownership of the land, but there must be some public land in the area - actually a lot of public land because it is mostly, worthless desert. And no one other than Charlie Kortes (RIP) may know the extent of the gold paleoplacer. We didn't even check on the east side of the North Platte River, but it likely extends into that area.

My recommendation to anyone who needs exercise, take a gold pan, dig some dirt, pan it in the North Platte River, and you will be a little richer in gold, health and you might even catch a fish or two. And look for diamonds, jade, jasper, agates, and banded iron formation. You might even start in places like Sunday Morning Creek, Deweese Creek, and other drainages. Even though they call these creeks in Wyoming, they are pretty much dry most of the year, but Deweese Creek would be my choice as it drains off Bradley Peak (where there are known gold deposits).

After searching the area using existing maps and aerial photography, my staff found a very nice, circular, depression in the Seminoe Mountains on the east side of the North Platte River. This depression was designated as the Seminoe Mountains cryptovolcanic anomaly (42°9'42"N; 106°52'22"W), and was later drilled by a diamond exploration company. The company told me that they were puzzled by the anomaly as it appeared to be a piston-like graben filled with soil and bottomed out in granite (Howard Coopersmith, personal communication). Personally, I think they should have continued drilling deeper, as kimberlite pipes (a primary source of diamonds) often capture large blocks of foreign rock, known as xenoliths, when they erupt. Even a group of diamond-bearing kimberlites in Colorado, known as the Sloan ranch kimberlites, have some impressive granitic xenoliths that were intersected in underground workings in the 1980s. Then, there is the Kelsey Lake diamond mine in Colorado, portions of the kimberlite are covered by a layer of granite.

Well, then there is the Bradley Peak gold deposit. At the base of Bradley Peak are some old gold mines, known as the Penn mines. These all have small, quartz veins with visible gold! In fact, in 1981, I accidentally started a gold rush after finding gold in quartz and in one sample of quartz cutting banded iron formation. After mentioning it to a reporter, the article showed up in the newspaper and soon the Seminoe Mountains were staked by dozens of mining claims! 

In this same region, some years ago, Dr. Terry Klein of the US Geological Survey identified a large, circular, propylitic alteration zone that also surrounds the gold-bearing veins at the Penn mines. This is mostly in metamorphosed basalt and includes some banded iron formation, and could potentially host a large disseminated gold deposit with high-grade veins.

Oh, and one last note - when I camped at Bradley Peak for the summer, it was one of two places where my tent was surrounded by some kind of critter, alien, skinwalker, or who knows what?! In the middle of the night, it ran circles around my tent at a very high speed. It woke me up, and I searched outside with a flashlight and my bear gun, and found no evidence (or tracks) of anything. It happened a couple of times in the Seminoes, and also happened in the Lewiston district of South Pass south of Lander. It both cases, it ran in a clockwise direction, right next to my tent. Based on the sound of the critter, I would guess it was about the size of a mid-size dog, but no panting, and no other sounds other than the sound of its feet, paws moving as fast as they could go. To this day, I still have no idea what it could have been?

So, is there any gold in the Seminoe Mountains district? Yep, if you can get access, you will want to visit the Penn mines. They are small, but they do have visible gold. And there there is Deweese Creek draining Bradley Peak, and of course, there is a fairly large paleoplacer to dry placer (the Kortes Gold Placer) along the north flank, which actually has some diamond-stability minerals from an unknown diamond deposits. And there is a lot of banded iron formation - with some incredible lapidary samples awaiting tumblers. So, get out and do some prospecting!

And while you are prospecting, spend a little time next door in the Shirley Mountains - not much is know about the area and I had hopes to map the Shirley Mountains about the time our research institute was taken over by real, live, commies - yep, the Wyoming Geological Survey became a communist stronghold in 2006 and began eliminating all of the productive people (I understand that 3 of them died and half of the patriots resigned). It was a dry run of a Biden crime syndicate.

Polished banded iron formation sample from Seminoe Mountains.

Spinifex-textured komatiite, Seminoe Mountains, Wyoming.

MOUNTAIN OF GOLD

It’s common knowledge - one can literally walk into the Superstition Mountains in Arizona, trip over the Lost Dutchman mine, fill their pockets full of gold, crawl out to Apache Junction and buy the other half of the US.



Me, former Senior Economic Geologist at the Wyoming Geological
Survey (University of Wyoming).

Legend after legend tells of untold riches at the Lost Dutchman but with little evidence that the mine ever existed; yet this mine is talked about by nearly every prospector in North America and you can bet scam artists will raise $millions to search for this Lost mine. I must say, I’m intrigued by these myths and why we believe them. Human nature? Why don't we just spend time searching for real gold deposits - there are hundreds out there, all we need to do is look. In nearly every present and past gold mining district in the world, there are dozens of good deposits that were overlooked by the past prospectors and mining companies. All it takes is for one to spend time learning about the characteristics of the deposits in the area, the regional geology and then doing some prospecting.

A specimen of the Lost Dutchman gold inlaid in this matchbox on display
at the Superstition Mountain Museum. Did this come from the
Vulture mine?

Gold Panning on the Middle Fork of the Little Laramie
River in the Medicine Bow Mountains. We use to offer
prospecting field trips to teach how to find gold, but the
US Forest Service demanded that we must have a permit
to do such nasty things on our public land. In 2010, a
 group of 20 people were looking forward to prospecting.
But the US Forest Service denied a permit because
we might step on some flowers. Not that the other
100,000 people who visit the MBM might step on flowers.
So, I no longer teach this field classes. If you would like to
see me back in the field, write to your Congressman and
tell them that the FS and BLM are misusing our public
lands.

Take Gold Rush Alaska. These guys started looking for gold on the Discovery Channel, but they should have read 'Gold Mining For Dummies' first, as they did everything exactly backwards (i.e., one should first prove a deposit has gold before spending several $hundred thousand driving to the deposit with equipment that they had no idea if it would work or not). 

It was even apparent that none of these wannabe miners had any idea on how to operate a gold pan, let alone a trommel.  Guess what surprises me most about this program is that these guys just show up in Alaska and in the Yukon and start mining. Talk about a tough venture. The only time people do things like this is when the economy collapses and people can no longer find jobs. So the best way to resolve this is to search for gold! It didn't take long before these gold prospectors ran into a serious problem - no not the weather, but the government inspectors.

When I ran the US exploration arm for DiamonEx Ltd, we had card-carrying Greenie bureaucrats with the US Forest Service, US Bureau of Land Management, EPA, Colorado DEQ, local home owner associations and county officials wanting a handout. Just to drill a dry pond that was covered with 4-wheeler tracks using a small drill rig to a depth of about 150 feet, it took months of paperwork and permits from Larimer County, the State of Colorado and the US Forest Service (and it cost our company enough to fund the Gold Rush Alaska boys for an entire season, when it should have only cost a few $thousand at the most. The next time you buy something in Walmart, you should have a very good idea as to why everything is made in China - they have no permits that cause cost delays over $200 thousand, and they are in our leaders' pockets big time).

Then after all of of this BS, the FS delayed our drilling operation several more weeks until their local ranger could take a vacation from her donut break in Laramie to come out to the site to tell us to move the drill rig from the center of the pond to its edge so that it would be less damaging to the environment. These delays were a significant problem. When we were exploring this region, it was prior to the 2008 economic crash and every drill rig in the country had a waiting list because of the boom in mineral's exploration. When the crash came, it destroyed hundreds of companies including DiamonEx.

One of the Lost Lakes cryptovolcanic depressions in the Colorado-Wyoming
State Line district that required months of environmental scrutiny before
permits would be issued by the county, the state and the feds.

Then we wanted to build a small mill to test one of our diamond properties. But we could not find water (it didn't matter that the site was sitting adjacent to a creek that had diamonds in it, and that the two kimberlites we wanted to mine had shear zones containing water, we could not get water rights and the county wanted us to move the mill somewhere close to Ft. Collins. Then after we found a possible mill site at a gravel quarry, the county didn't want us running trucks full of diamonds on their road because it might kick up some dirt. You just can't win.

It was nice to have the title of Vice President of Exploration for a diamond company, but I will never, never do that again. The headaches are too much for this o' country boy. I make a very good independent consulting geologist, but never would I work in management again.

Back to myths. So why do so many politicians believe in the myth of human caused global warming? Our ice caps are melting and the ocean has risen several feet on the East and West coasts of the US. Or have they?  I was in California and Florida two summers ago and neither place seemed to be under water. Maybe all of the water evaporated? Is there something amiss here? You bet there is. Money, money, money. Like all good politicians and environmentalists, Al Gore and others stand to make $billions on the global warming scam. But we all know that Al Gore is the savior of the environment? Then there is the recent listing of carbon dioxide as a pollutant by the EPA - plant food! My, my, what next for the EPA, will it be water and oxygen? I will have to write about the time that the EPA invaded Laramie, Wyoming in space suits - you will love this one.

Massive pyrite, also known as fool's gold.

Myths will always be embellished, and through time such stories gain more intrigue as each person adds a little of their own flavor to they myth. But I must say that at least the Lost Dutchman has more scientific credibility than man-caused global warming, climate change, or what ever government pseudo-scientists and grant-starved academicians are calling it today. But at least many gold myths have some credibility that may start as a rock filled with pyrite (fool's gold) and grow into a Mountain of Gold as the myth is fertilized through time.

I grew up in Utah. Went to graduate school at the University of Utah and then to the University of New Mexico. I heard about the Lost Rhoades (Mormon) gold mine. It’s located somewhere near Provo and has so much gold that one could pave a highway with the precious metal – if only it could be found again. With so much gold, I’m surprised such a mine could remain hidden. I’ve been told of the evidence - Angel Moroni, a statue on top of the Salt Lake temple, is coated with gold - and of course that gold had to have come from this mine (or from prospectors who lost their hair). Take for instance Mountain Meadows. Mountain Meadows?
I never heard of it. I was surprised because I grew up in Utah as a Utah Gentile (when I worked at the Hansen Planetarium in college, my boss was Jewish, and he often remarked that he too was a Gentile in Utah). I had to take Utah history in public schools and Mountain Meadows was never mentioned, but the site of the massacre happened to be located in the middle of my thesis area. So while I was mapping volcanic rocks, I did a little reading. So did the gold come from robbing prospectors on their way back east from the Californian gold fields? To be honest with you, I have no idea. I suspect much of the gold came from Mormon miners working prospects in the Oquirrh Mountains or other localities in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming, or Nevada.

When I left the land of Zion for New Mexico and later left the Taco State for the Cowboy State, I heard about the Lost Cabin Gold Mine in the Northern Big Horn Mountains (you should be getting the impression that every state has a lost gold mine). So much gold was found that the prospectors filled their pockets and saddle bags with gold and then out-ran a band of Indians (can we still call them Indians? Is this still politically correct?) (while weighed down with tons of gold). They were unable to later rediscover the location of the mine. It still remains lost in the myths of time.

It is unfortunate so many people waste time and money on myths and scams when there are actual gold deposits to be found. But even if you find a gold deposit, real mines have to be made and worked. But for some environmental groups they would rather run scams than work for a living. People who build mines end up paying taxes to have the privilege of paying much of their hard-earned cash to government bandits - we know them as Congressmen.

Abandoned gold dredge, Flat Alaska, 1988.

Years ago, I attended a Northwestern Mining Conference in Spokane. I don’t remember the name of the person who made the statement but he said, “Mines are not found, they are made”. This person understood what was required – a lot of hard work and a whole lot of luck. Mark Twain stated “A gold mine is a hole in the ground with a liar standing over it”. Few people like to put the work into making a mine, particularly when they can sell worthless dirt for $millions. And I'll tell you about the people who sold dirt for $millions!

It is a fact that gigantic riches are hidden at vortexes that only make their appearance on the 3rd full moon of each millennium when Mars passes through Aquarius, Saturn through Leo, Kolob through who knows where, or where a compass is mysteriously deflected by a hidden UFO landing site, where dowsing rods bend, or where coffee boils at a faster rate. Why should one particular atom, i.e, gold, defy all of physical laws of the universe and create so many unexplained esoteric anomalies? When you begin searching for your Mountain of Gold, use the laws of science – forget baloney and you will be a lot better off. If nothing else, you may lose a few pounds and gain self-esteem.

There is literally thousands of gold, gemstone and other mineral deposits scattered all over North America. All one has to do is to put together honest work, learn a little geology, study a little history, have an open mind, use science, learn to differentiate fact from fiction, avoid Canadian promoters, people of prominent religious standing, lawyers and state geologists from Wyoming. There’s nothing to it. I'm not suggesting I'm not religious - because I am. Its just that one needs to beware of con-men in all professions.

In my book - MOUNTAIN OF GOLD, I will provide a guide on how to find mineral deposits. I will tell you stories that will make you cry, stories that will make you laugh. I will tell you about stupidity so rampant in government and in some exploration companies, that you will wonder if Darwin was right. I will tell you about how I identified gemstones that everyone else walked over!

I found visible gold in outcrops (typically, if you see a single pinpoint of visible gold in a rock specimen with a 10x hand lens, the sample will assay at least one ounce/ton in gold – that is $1200 per ounce of this stuff) and started gold rushes in the Seminoe Mountains, South Pass, Sierra Madre, Rattlesnake Hills and other places. I was on the discovery team of a major gold find in the Kuskokwim Mountains in Alaska that was classified as the largest undeveloped gold deposit in North America and more recently as one of the largest untapped gold deposits in the world.

The largest colored gemstone deposit on earth may have been found in 2005. As a reward, my field vehicle was confiscated and reassigned to the secretary. I was threatened to be fired by the director of the Geological Survey. Apparently, I was finding too much, making the government nervous. I discovered one thing about socialism - if you work hard, you put your job on the line. Bureaucrats and their understudies are threatened by those who disturb donut breaks. I must apologize for digressing into politics again.

I found several gemstone deposits including > hundred gold anomalies, a platinum-palladium-gold-nickel anomaly that still remains unexplored, I found mountains of iolite (wouldn't make a very good book title). I found rubies, sapphires, aquamarines, heliodors, gem apatites, jasper, agate, hills of opal (might be a good book title), diamonds, Cape Rubies, Cape Emeralds, peridots & evidence for several hundred diamond deposits. I found some of the largest kyanite gem deposits on earth. Hey, one iolite gem deposit I examined has an estimated (now get this) >2 trillion carats (now you know why my former boss was so upset). In this book I will tell you how to find and where to find real treasures.

How could one person find so much? I used scientific methods (unlike the pseudo-scientists at the University of Anglia who falsified data and models to promote their global warming scam). I didn’t have to go far. Some of these deposits were sitting right along the interstate. Some adjacent to US Highways. Several were within a stone’s throw of the pavement.

This is a book about me, prospectors, about how to prospect. It is about the best people in the world (prospectors) and some scum (directors, bureaucrats, forest rangers). It is about my experience in life and the life I came to know. It is about some crazy prospectors. It is about the Mountain of Gold and how I found it. I hope you enjoy my stories! Most are true.

Burro-crats

Gold does something to people. It is like an additive drug, booze, or gambling. Most people are semi-normal until you put gold in front of their noses, and then they do things that just don’t make sense. Sometimes you don’t even have to put gold in front of their noses, just implant the image of caves filled with gold, and they are gone – off to the holodeck – with gray mass scattered across the universe during beam up.

My personal search for gold began in 1977. I was hired as the ‘Economic Geologist’ for the Wyoming Geological Survey. In 1977, this research agency at the University of Wyoming was aptly known at the Geological Survey of Wyoming, it had previously been known as the Wyoming Territorial Survey. Over the years, one paranoid director renamed the agency the Wyoming Geological Survey. This was fine, but in a short time, it was renamed again. He wanted the public to be sure they knew we were separate from the US Geological Survey (not that anyone cared).

And before I could hand out all of my business cards, I kid you not, he changed the name again. And he was being paid big bucks to do this. This time he was concerned about the legislature. But maybe he had something here – after all, we are talking about dimwitted politicians who should have already been eliminated by natural selection. We now became the Wyoming State Geological Survey as if this would protect the agency from budget cuts. I remember throwing away hundreds of business cards as we changed the agency’s name 3 times in 2 years. What a legacy to be remembered for. But this was nothing compared to later directors.

Dan Hausel, former geologist from the Wyoming Geological Survey at the
University ofWyoming, makes the cover of the Prospecting and Mining Journal following
discoveries of the largest iolite (water sapphire) gemstones ever found on earth, along with
opals over 75,000 carats, rubies, sapphires, peridot, kyanite, commercial gold deposits,
diamonds, and more.

Compared to surrounding states, Wyoming produced only a minor amount of gold: actually, a comparatively insignificant amount. Such a discrepancy is notable when comparing the Cowboy State to Montana, South Dakota, Colorado and Idaho (we could even throw in Arizona, Nevada, California and Utah). One has to wonder how all of the surrounding states could have produced 50 to 200 times as much gold and be so endowed in silver and copper while Wyoming has practically nothing: just trivial gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, nickel, platinum and palladium. How could metal deposits know where the state boundaries were, and how could they just stop at the boundary?The answer is, they don’t. The geology of Wyoming is favorable for discovery of significant deposits of precious metals associated with porphyry deposits, stocks, volcanics, volcanic and sedimentary breccias, replacement deposits, vein deposits, shear zone deposits, exhalites, massive sulfides, layered complexes, placers and paleoplacers to name a few. Thus one has to look at the environment in Wyoming as well as at the government to find a partial cause for this discrepancy. Why would the geology be favorable and yet the amount of mined precious and base metals be so trivial compared to neighboring states? For instance, Idaho produced 25 times more gold, Montana 50 times more gold, Colorado and South Dakota 200 times more gold than Wyoming. With Wyoming lying in the middle of these states and having similar geology, something just does not jive: it is very likely that significant gold deposits remain hidden and/or lie within the massive withdrawn areas in the state.

Wyoming was a difficult place for prospectors to work because of high winds and desolate plateaus surrounded by mountain ranges that became a battleground for immigrants and Indians. Historical records from the 1800s report constant conflicts between the Emigrants and Indians. But the government and green movements provided an even more noisome environment to mining. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries piecemeal withdrawals of potentially productive terrains continued to occur in the state that continues to be unchecked. The size of the total area withdrawn from mining is now larger than whole states.

Over the years, I witnessed potentially productive regions being withdrawn for the most trivial reasons and it became apparent that the government sought to withdraw regions with mineral potential by using National Park, wilderness and roadless designations, the rare and endangered species act, and any other act they could dream up. Potentially, the greatest mineralized region on the planet is now incorporated in Yellowstone National Park. And the more recent Roadless designations have also been misguided. All of the lands incorporated into Roadless withdrawals that I visited are crisscrossed by dozens of roads. With the Federal government being out of control, the State Government didn’t want to be left behind and periodically flexed its bureaucratic muscles. Most notable was the purchase of private land by the State so the bureaucrats could enclose the State’s largest known gold deposit into a historic site without considering any geological studies (which were available at the time of withdrawal). In fact, the legislature purposely avoided geological studies of the Carissa mine as the author of this legislation knew that the property had considerable potential and wanted to eliminate controversy. Thus the legislation was snuck through the bureaucratic halls in Cheyenne and Wyoming’s largest known gold deposit was scheduled to be demolished to produce a picnic site for a few dozen tourists, rather than create high-paying jobs and recover significant severance taxes on gold production. Does the government have our best interests in mind? I doubt that.

Hausel often taught prospectors, rock hounds and geologists his methods
for finding mineral deposits.

Where the American Indians failed, the government succeeded. In 2003, after some press releases about discovery of a major opal deposit had been released by my office (Cedar Ridge deposit), it became apparent that the US Bureau of Land Management looked to withdraw this discovery to protect a desolate area filled with sagebrush and pump-jacks. But this became even more obvious when one realizes that the BLM had no idea where in the state this opal deposit was located – but they still wanted to withdraw the land and protect anything they could dream up. After I had sampled the 16 mi2 region, I purposely kept the opal discovery site secret so that all citizens of the US could have equal opportunity to stake claims on a major gem and decorative stone deposit. Before the report was released, I was called by the BLM who demanded to know the location prior to the report’s release. I refused. Even so, as soon as the report was released, the BLM went to work to try to stop the public from staking claims and exploring for commercial opal deposits. They championed a non-indigenous flower as a reason to protect this desolate area from prospectors. But this was not the first time the government showed their intentions to keep the public mineral wealth from the public.

Professor Hausel leads one of many field trips to the South Pass gold
district. After being rewarded with some of the more prestigious awards
in science and geology, he took early retirement in 2007 from the Wyoming
Geological Survey to work as VP of Exploration for an international diamond
mining company. It was rumored the professor left the WGS
on ethical grounds - he could not work for a complete idiot. 

Several years earlier, I had been asked by the US Forest Service to accept a grant to study and map all of the known mines in the Medicine Bow National Forest because I knew these better than any other person. The purpose of the project was to reclaim dangerous mines, which there were very few that were actually dangerous. In the grant proposal, I had stated I would use $20,000 per year to test mineralized and altered rock for metal content while mapping – I felt it was important for the USFS to know what they were reclaiming and planning to bury. I had already seen abuse of the abandoned mine program in several places in the state where the government paid a $million+ for a copper exchange unit to extract copper from a trickle of water from a historic copper mine that used a plastic Walmart kiddy pool with a cow manure bucket. Another property was a potentially economic strategic and precious metal deposit that was reclaimed at a very high price, so the land could be subdivided and sold as cabin sites by the contractor who had received the funds. And there were many more.

When the grant report was presented to the USFS, they used 6 months to review it and signed off on the grant. It had been active for one month when I got a call from the project chief in Denver who indicated that he had just read the grant proposal (after having it in his possession for 7 months!). He said he had just read the proposal and needed to modify the project. They would not allow me to take any samples or test any rocks and would not allow me to even collect samples! They apparently realized that even though I knew where all of the old mines were located, had visited most of them over the years, my reputation as a mine finder had got to them. They did not want me to find any more mineral deposits. I politely told the USFS to shove the grant up their adit.