Everywhere There Are Diamonds

One man's quartz is another man's diamonds.

Some years ago, I was employed at the Wyoming Geological Survey as an economic research geologist, and much of my work related to diamond deposits, gold, colored gemstones, Archean greenstone belts and other Precambrian geology, igneous petrology, as well as metallic mineral deposits. Sounds like a mouthful, but it was perfect for me. 

Some other work that often hit me included writing grant proposals, books and professional papers on our research, and answering my phone. Much of the time, I looked forward to phone calls because it was like metal detecting for gold nuggets - every once in a while, I would hit the jackpot! Well, today was the day - I hit the jackpot again!

A prospector called from along the roadside in Jeffrey City, across the highway from the Granite Mountains in central Wyoming. If you are unfamiliar with the place, grab your Google Earth and search for “Jeffrey City, WY” - its the State's largest town in central Wyoming. Some outstanding cultural features of Jeffrey City include the Split Rock Bar and the Top Hat Motel (apparently renamed as the Green Mountain, Motel). Yes, the Top Hat was quite a place when I lived in Wyoming - just visualize a 30-year old, single-wide trailer, with paper thin walls, radioactive rugs, and lots of wind - only a fool would stay at the Top Hat - and yep, I was fooled once.  Anyway, enough of culture! 

The prospector wanted to know what he should do with all of the diamonds he was finding. I was impressed, so I asked, "How many are you finding?"

“Thousands! There are thousands all over the hill-side!" He responded.

Now this was getting downright interesting. So, I asked him, "how are you verifying these diamonds?" His response was wonderful, "I just scratch the windshield on my truck, and most leave a nice scratch". 

I responded, "Can you see out of your windshield well enough to drive home?" 

I continued, "by the way, diamonds will scratch glass including windshields, since glass has a hardness of only 5.5 to 6 on the Moh's hardness scale. Many things will scratch your windshield including pyrite, feldspar, corundum, and even plain o’ quartz. How do you think people get all of those pits in their windshields during sandstorms or just by driving around Wyoming? No answer, but I assume he got home ok.

Then there was another prospector who called and told me he had been diamond hunting south of Laramie near the State Line (40°59'45"N; 105°30’30"W) for years and never found a single diamond. After talking for awhile, he described his method for diamond testing: "I put them on an anvil and hit them with a hammer and if the crush, they are not diamonds!" 

He mentioned he had picked up octahedral crystals in the Colorado-Wyoming State Line district (where there are several known diamond deposits) but none were diamonds because they all failed his hardness test!

I told him about the difference between hardness and mechanical brittleness, and that all diamonds break when struck by a hammer.  You could hear that sound of ... well, it sounded like muffled swearing in the background as he hung up.

It's A Diamond, Errr A Gregory?

Ever hear of a "Gregory?" Well, in South Africa, a British professor is immortalized forever, for his comment. In South Africa, a ‘Gregory’ is a term applied to a blunder of major proportions. Thanks to James Gregory, a professor from Great Britain. 

The story goes, that in the mid-1860s, diamonds were found along the Orange River in South Africa and Professor Gregory purportedly was hired in 1868 by a London diamond dealer, to investigate the Orange River diamonds to determine potential for the region to produce diamonds. After visiting the diamond fields, Gregory published a report in the Journal of Society of Arts, stating he had made a lengthy examinations of the new diamond fields and concluded there was no potential for mining diamonds as the stones were either ‘salted’ by locals attempting to increase the value of their farms, or transported to the Orange River by ostriches. Apparently Gregory never considered where all of the ostriches, decorated in rings, bracelets, necklaces, and tiaras were finding their gems. So the story goes, that within a short time, the Orange River region (its placers and kimberlites) became one of the greatest diamond producing regions in the world which included many of the greatest diamonds ever found on earth including the giant 3,006.75 carat Cullinan diamond. 

Two beautiful diamonds from Murfreesboro,
Arkansas. Note the distrinct greasy luster of the
raw diamonds (courtesy of Glenn
Worthington).

Unfortunately, Professor Gregory will not be the last pessimist. We’ve all known exploration geologists and company CEO’s who should have namesakes attached to blunders. Comments like … “if there was something of value, it would have already been found”, and “we only look in elephant country”, "the world will be ice free by 2013" deserve Gregory awards. Yet these types of comments are made by so-called educated people.  Prospectors on the other hand are optimistic - sometimes overly optimistic. An example of this optimism led to an interesting event when I was a geologist at the Wyoming Geological Survey at the University of Wyoming.  

Green octahedral diamond - a common crystal habit,
although green diamonds are not common.

I received a phone call from an individual who thought he had found a large diamond west of Cheyenne. According to an unnamed gemologist from Cheyenne, this crystal was large diamond. But the gemologist suggested before the prospector sold all of his belongings and purchased a mansion on the French Riviera he should visit my office for a second opinion. By this time in my career, I had a good reputation as a diamond exploration geologist because of my research on kimberlites and lamproites. At the end of the phone call, I gave him directions to my office. It’s about one hour’s drive from Cheyenne, so I was surprised when he and his three family members came knocking at my door 30-minutes later, apparently anxious to cash in their millions.  

The finder of the crystal introduced himself as ‘Jack’ and did not give a last name, and without further hesitation, opened a locked brief case chained to his wrist to show me the ‘Star of Cheyenne’. It was fist size, and about the same size as the famous Cullinan diamond. The Cullinan was the largest diamond found in history, and was a whopping 3,006 carats recovered from the Premier Mine, in Professor Gregory's old stomping grounds in South Africa. It was a priceless gem and ended up in the Crown Jewels of England. 

I had met Dr. Arnold Waters, Jr, a few years earlier in my office. Dr. Waters was the former Chief Geologist for DeBeers in South Africa, and Arnold told me that when the Cullinan was found, it had a distinct cleaved surface where part of the diamond had been broken during its transport to the earth's surface in a kimberlite pipe (volcano). He indicated the other half of the diamond was thought by some, to have been just a large if not larger than the Cullinan itself! Where it was - was anyone's guess. Did it break off somewhere at great depth and still sitting thousands of feet deep? Did it make it to the surface and was missed by the sorters ending up in the crusher where it made many little diamonds? 

Geologist examining rock sample with hand lens

The gem in question was gingerly handed to me. As soon as I saw it, I knew what it was, but decided to let the family down slowly, so I made a show of it. First I showed them how to test specific gravity of a mineral by weighing the gem in water then in air. I determined the crystal to have a specific gravity of 2.7 - too light for diamond (diamond's specific gravity is 3.5, heavy enough that it would show up with garnets and black sands in a gold pan). I also tested its hardness by taking a diamond chip and easily scratched a notch in the crystal. This resulted in an up-roar and immediate protest from the family as they thought I was scratching their priceless diamond.  

“Hold on a second,” I exclaimed.  “If this was a diamond, I wouldn’t be able to scratch it with a diamond chip so easily, diamond has a Moh’s hardness of 10 and is the hardest known mineral in nature, and it is almost impossible to scratch a diamond with another diamond”.  After I calmed them down and convinced them that all they had was an specimen of ordinary piece of rock crystal (transparent massive quartz), they left the office dejected and drove back to Cheyenne with visions of mansions and Lamborghinis fading.  I thought this was over, but I guessed wrongly.

The next day, I was contacted by one of our other geologists - Ray Harris (RIP) - who stopped in my office to tell me he had just received a call from a person in Cheyenne who had a probable diamond and wanted a second opinion. The person on the phone explained he had already talked to me, but he and his gemologist decided another opinion was a good idea.  

Ray went back to his office to wait for the Cheyenne family. I laughed to myself. Ray was a very good geologist, but he had a reputation as a klutz. He was famous for running into things, breaking things, and if anything could go wrong – leave it up to Ray. One of my favorite stories about Ray took place in a staff meeting. Ray was holding a cup of coffee in his left hand when another geologist asked him for the time of day. Without hesitation, Ray rotated his wrist to look at his watch, pouring all of his coffee in his lap. Ray was the Jacques Clouseau of geology.

Raw uncut diamond. Note the distinct trigons (triangular
growth plates on the diamond) this is characteristic
of many diamonds.

The Cheyenne family arrived with their gem. They talked about the gemologist’s opinion and their concern about my scratching their diamond. I don't know if Ray had ever seen an diamond in the rough and after examining the fist-size specimen with a hand lens, he decided to get a better look and carried it to his microscope in his adjacent lab. With family in tow, he lost control of the sample and it crashed onto the floor shattering into dozens of pieces.

The family turned pale white. But Ray consoled them as he looked down on the floor, “Well, guess it wasn’t a diamond – it has conchoidal fracture”.   

The family scooped up the fragments of their dreams and precious quartz and went home, never to be seen again. When Ray told me about this encounter – I delightedly laughed, and then pointed out to that diamond (as well as quartz) also produced conchoidal fracture upon breaking. Ray also turned pale white. But, I finished with, "don't worry it was just a piece of quartz".

* This story originally appeared in an article in the ICMJ Prospecting and Mining Journal as

Hausel, W.D., 2000, Diamond Fever: International California Mining Journal, v. 69, no. 6, p. 13-15. At the time, Ray Harris was still alive and a very productive member of society. However, within 6 years, he passed away after being harassed endlessly at the Wyoming State Geological Survey by the director. A very sad note for a person I admired and respected. Of a small staff of only about 24 people, 3 died, and about 40% resigned, retired or quit (all covered up by the Wyoming government & press).

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.