Cross-cuts

DOOM AND GLOOM FOR MANY PRECIOUS METALS

Apart from gold, not all is well with precious metals. And a good argument can be made that silver, platinum and palladium should continue to disappoint. The reason is simple: the combination of a slowing global economy with rising inflation may prove positive for gold, but not for these predominantly industrial metals.

Take the case of silver, for instance, where a marked decline in industrial consumption could well coincide with a sizeable increase in supplies. Several new gold and base metals mining operations will add substantial amounts of by-product silver to the market.

Some of these, like Placer-Dome’s La Coipa are already producing. But supplies from others, like Cominco’s Red dog mine in Alaksa, are yet to come on-stream. The world’s largest lead-zinc mine, the Red Dog, in northern Alaska, alone is slated to add some four million ounces of silver to world markets.

The continuing growth in supplies would not be such a major problem if it did not occur at a time when warehouses are bursting with stockpiled material. Comex (Commidity Exchange of New York) stocks, for example, were at record levels at the beginning of this year, but have already posted another 7% increase since then.”

— from Cavelti’s Market Report, published by Cavelti Capital Management Ltd.

BURYING NUCLEAR WASTE

In the past, ideas for the long-term disposal of high-level nuclear wastes have ranged from rocketing the material into orbit around the sun to burying it at sea. They have all been dismissed as too risky and costly.

The one idea that has found universal currency among nations with nuclear programs is underground disposal of the wastes 500 to 1,000 metres deep in stable geological formations. International and national research programs have concluded the concept is both safe and technologically feasible.

Seventeen countries are now at various stages of developing their disposal technologies and facilities. Five of these countries have selected granite formations for the underground disposal vaults, one a volcanic tuff formation, one a salt formation and one a clay formation. The other countries are studying disposal in granite, salt, clay and sedimentary rock.

— from the winter, 1990, issue of Ascent, published by Atomic Energy of Canada.

PAPER CALL FOR METALLURGISTS

The Ernest Peters International Symposium on Hydrometallurgy has announced a call for papers. The symposium will be held in Vancouver June 14-17, 1992. It will also constitute the annual hydrometallurgy meeting of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. The conference address is Dept. of Metals & Materials Engineering, University of British Columbia, 309-6350 Stores Rd., Vancouver, B.C., V6T 1W5.

MONITORING CRAGGY’S HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT

So far, a total of $C50 million has been spent on the remote Windy Craggy copper deposit, 190 km southwest of Whitehorse, Y.T., part of it having gone toward the first stages of a major environmental study. In fact, environmental assessment is probably where Geddes Resources will face the most challenging hurdles in its efforts to bring this huge deposit into production.

The company plans to produce about 400,000 tonnes of concentrate per year, which will be hauled via a 104-km, all-weather road to the year-round port of Haines, Alaska — and herein lies an environmental concern, for this travel artery runs through pristine Alpine country and includes a 13-km stretch over the slow-moving Tats glacier. Another potential problem is acid drainage generated by open pit waste.

It is a mark of the recent increase in environmental concern that previous operations in the area, such as Cassiar Asbestos and Grand Duc, had only to “conquer” the hostile environment, whereas Geddes Resources must conquer as well as “preserve.”

Situated in the remote St. Elias mountain range, Windy Craggy is estimated to host a geological reserve of 165 million tonnes grading 1.9% copper, 0.08% cobalt, 0.2 grams gold and 3.9 grams silver, though ultimate potential has been speculated in excess of 300 million tonnes. The broken ore will be dumped down a series of ore passes, transported by conveyor through the existing exploration adit and then trucked to the mill where it will be processed at the rate of 20,000 tonnes per day.

OUT OF SIGHT

In their quest for the invisible, geophysicists who search for deep-seated orebodies are in illustrious company. Most galactic matter is invisible and some of the world’s leading scientists are trying to fathom what that invisible something is.

“At least 90% of the matter in galaxies like ours exists in a form that does not give off visible light or any other radiation that our instruments can detect,” says an article in the September/October issue of BCDiscovery magazine. This matter, dubbed dark matter, gives off neither visible light nor any other form of detectable radiation.

DRIFTING

Glacial drift prospecting began in the 1950s and has been expanding since the 1970s, largely through the efforts of the Geological Surve of Canada’s terrain sciences division. This prospecting method of identifying potentially economic mineralization in glacial sediments and tracing it up-ice to the source has resulted in several finds, according to an article in GEOS, a publication of Energy, Mines and Resources Canada.

The successes include Strange Lake, a rare earth-niobium-beryllium deposit in Labrador and the Golden Pond East deposit in Quebec.

TO RUSSIA WITH MITEC

Mining Industry Technology Council of Canada (MITEC) is organizing a 2-week Mineral Processing Technology Mission to the U.S.S.R. The event is scheduled for early January, 1991.

This investigative mission will try to determine whether the U.S.S.R. has, or is in the process of developing, any innovative technologies in mineral processing. Any such innovations must have potential application in the Canadian mineral industry, according to the September, 1990, issue of MITEC’s Mineral Industry Research Newsletter.

The mission will be restricted to six people and a MITEC representative. Target research institutes are the Ministry of Metallurgy and the Technology Exporting Agency, both in Moscow; and four Leningrad-based institutes: the Plekhanov Institute, Gipronickel, Mechanobr, and Medhor.

Representatives of CANMET, Cominco Ltd., Falconbridge Ltd. and Inco Ltd. have signed up. MITEC welcomes others. The estimated cost is $5,000 and further information can be obtained from Andre Sikorski, Technology Search Advisor, 19 Cedargrove Court, Nepean, Ont., K2G 0M4.

STUDENT INTEREST IN GEOLOGY IS A SIGN OF THE TIMES

The rising concern over the earth’s environment has prompted new interest in geology programs at some U.S. colleges, the New York Times reports. At Wooster, Ohio, the number of students majoring in geology jumped to 13 this year from only seven a year earlier. A professor of the college attributed this to the need by industries for skilled geologists who can handle such problems as water contamination and waste handling.

The professor wenenon to say that today’s geology majors need a better grounding in chemistry and several courses in computer science and the flow of fluids.