A little more detail on Evolving’s Wyoming discovery

I very much enjoy reading your newspaper — it is outstanding and second to none!

But I do have a bone to pick with one recent article titled “Evolving Gold explores Wyoming’s Rattlesnake Hills” (T. N.M., Feb. 1- 7/10). I’m very impressed by Evolving Gold’s drill intercepts, but would like to set the record straight on discovery in this district as some readers were apparently confused and contacted me as I was the person who initially recognized the significance of this district many years ago.

I made several gold discoveries in the Rattlesnake Hills (RSH) in 1981 and 1982, the late 1980s and early 1990s. After I had initially identified gold in this previously overlooked Archean terrain, John Ray (formerly with ACNC) made other discoveries. Bald Mountain Mining, Canyon Resources and Newmont Gold followed ACNC, but I’m not privy to their work, other than I wrote another paper in 2000 with two other authors (Dave Miller and Wayne Sutherland) on the likelihood that Canyon Resources and Newmont Gold would drill a greater than 1-million- ounce deposit based on their drill intercepts.

In 1981, I was working as an economic geologist for the Wyoming Geological Survey, when little was known about the state’s hard rock mineral resources and Archean terrains.

Over the years, I tried to map most of the Archean complexes along with all of the state’s kimberlite and lamproite resources.

By time I left the survey, I had mapped more than 1,000 sq. km of complex terrains that included three greenstone belts (including the RSH), a large supracrustal belt, three kimberlite districts, a major lamproite field and a Proterozoic terrain.

My interest in the RSH sparked when I was asked by the University of Wyoming engineering department to find a bulk minable gold deposit. The department was preparing an application for a federal grant and needed a core project. I had already helped them with another institute where they used my diamond/kimberlite project as a core study for another institute. So they provided me with a small grant from that initial institute to find a deposit they could research.

I came up with a group of targets — my number one was the RSH. I liked this area because several Tertiary alkalic plugs had intruded the Archean complex. The plugs had already been studied in two PhD dissertations that focused on igneous petrology and this area looked like a possibility for a bulk minable gold deposit.

Thus in 1981 and 1982, my field assistant (Suzanne Jones) and I went to the RSH and discovered gold in four different deposit types. I became interested in focusing on some stockworks in gneiss in the greenstone belt and breccias in metagraywackes between Sandy Mountain (what EVG calls the North Stock and Antelope basin), Oshihan Hill (what EVG calls the South Stock) and Goat Mountain as well as the vein/exhalites deposits.

The department dropped the original idea of exploring for gold, so I was back to my annual field budget that amounted to nearly $500 (this was to cover assays, whole rock analyses and per diem). I worked from a tent and paid for my food so I would have money for rock analyses and assays.

There are always people who stand in line to receive all recognition for any discovery. Why people can’t give others credit and note their own accomplishments, is beyond my comprehension. EVG has tremendous drill intercepts and I congratulate them and I wish I could have been the one to drill this anomaly, but on my budget, I couldn’t have even afforded a hand auger.

History shows that I made the original gold discovery of this district. I later mapped and described the terrain as an Archean greenstone belt fragment intruded by more than 40 alkalic intrusives — there are more than a dozen papers that verify this discovery and research.

Rarely are discoveries due to a single event, they are due to multiple events and each leads to further understanding of a deposit. A good example was work done on a deposit in 1988 and 1989 in Alaska. I took leave of absence to consult for WestGold and was one of seven geologists recognized for contributing to the discovery of this deposit. Others came later and expanded on our initial work. The seven of us received the 2009 Thayer Lindsley Award for our part in the discovery of the Donlin Creek gold deposit. I like the sound of this — particularly the “our part.” And just like Donlin Creek, several people have had a hand in discovery of gold in the RSH — not one.

The following bibliography includes some of the dozens of reports published on geology and discovery of the Rattlesnake Hills district:

• Hausel, W.D., and Jones, Suzanne, 1982, Field notes — Lost Muffler gold prospect, Rattlesnake Hills: Geological Survey of Wyoming unpublished Mineral Report MR82-9.

• Hausel, W.D., andJones, S.,1982, Geological reconnaissance report of metallic deposits for in situ and heap leaching extraction research possibilities: Geological Survey of Wyoming Open File Report 82-4.

• Hausel, W.D., 1989, The Geology of Wyoming’s Precious Metal Lode & Placer Deposits: Geological Survey of Wyoming Bulletin 68.

• Hausel, W.D., 1994, Economic geology of the Rattlesnake Hills, Granite Mountains, central Wyoming (abstract) Wyoming Geological Association Newsletter, vol. XLI no. 3.

• Hausel, W.D., 1995, Preliminary report on the geology and gold mineralization of the Rattlesnake Hills supracrustal belt, Wyoming:Wyoming Geological Association Resources of Southwestern Wyoming Guidebook, p. 361-372.

• Hausel, W.D., 1996, Economic Geology of the Rattlesnake Hills Supracrustal Belt, Natrona County, Wyoming: Geological Survey of Wyoming Report of Investigations 52

• Hausel, W.D., 1997, The Geology of Wyoming’s Copper, Lead, Zinc, Molybdenum and Associated Metal Deposits: Geological Survey of Wyoming Bulletin 70.

• Hausel, W.D., 1998, The Rattlesnake Hills -Wyoming’s little known gold district: International California Mining Journal, v. 68, no. 4.

• Hausel, W.D., Miller, D.R., Sutherland, W.M., 2000, Economic diversification through mineral resources: Wyoming Geological Association Field Conference Guidebook, p. 209-225.

–W. Dan Hausel Geological Consultant Gilbert , Ariz.