ODDS ‘N’ SODS — Mission: Impossible

Mining properties with mineral grades a little too low for comfort are not new.

In fact, The Northern Miner reported on a property with, as it turned out, low grades sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s. That same story introduced readers to the workings of two revolutionary devices — the Decimal Point Mover (DPM) and the Zero Adding Component (ZAC).

The DPM, a handy little device, was used to improve gold grades. For example, the DPM unit, when applied judiciously only once, could instantaneously convert a grade of 0.01 oz. gold per ton to 0.1 oz. gold per ton. Two applications of DPM technology would be required if the grade was very low.

The other definition tool, the ZAC, could be used either in conjunction with the DPM or as a stand-Alone device, depending on whether 1 million or 10 million tonnes of material were required to ensure a viable mining operation.

The two devices could well have proved a boon to struggling exploration companies the world over.

Although the instruments proved to be breakthroughs, they, like many such discoveries, were at odds with the vested interests of bigger corporations.

Like the Avro Arrow or the pill that would allow automobiles to run on tap water, the widespread introduction of the DPM and ZAC was suppressed by those companies that stood to lose.

However, it would appear that a prototype unit was overlooked, or perhaps stored secretly in the basement of a house in a town somewhere in Canada.

This unit may recently have come into the hands of someone who converted it for the metric system of measurement. That person may then have teamed up with a computer hacker.

What the two did then was to break into the computer storing the assay reporting system for an active, Canadian-based exploration company. Once into the fax line at the company’s offices in western Canada, the pair used the trans-Pacific cable to gain access to the computer, which was on an island on the other side of the world. From there, the two tampered with the sensitive instrument used to read the gold content of the cyanide assay solution.

The now-Modernized DPM and ZAC tools may have been inserted, as a sub-routine, between sensitive gold-reading instruments and the continuous recording device.

The first judicious application of the DPM moved the grade from 0.001 gram to 0.01 gram gold per tonne; two additional applications increased output from the gold reading instrument to a respectable 1 gram per tonne. Further applications of the DPM were not necessary, as the grade was now sufficiently high. There was no need to use the ZAC, as readings of 0.001 gram gold per tonne can be obtained almost anywhere.

— The author, a mining engineer, wishes to remain anonymous.