Gold and platinum can be found in some ore

The Oct 17th issue of The Northern Miner recently carried an article by Professor Jerry White addressing the promotion of precious metals stocks by “boiler room sales promotions” (N.M., Oct 17/88 Mining fear instead of gold).

Professor White states as part five of his “basic rules to follow in any gold-related investment” that: “Gold and silver can be found in the same ore but never gold and platinum.” This statement may be of limited validity for investors, but is misleading for prospectors and geologists.

Platinum occurs commonly associated with gold in placer deposits, indeed this type of deposit was the only known source of platinum from the late seventeenth century out of Colombia, until the discovery of the Russian platinum-gold placers in the early nineteenth century.

Platinum is also known to occur associated with gold in quartz veins — albeit at present, only subeconomic concentrations have been reported. However, little attention has been given to studying platinum-gold associations in quartz veins and there is a good possibility that economic quantities of platinum occur in gold deposits but remain unrecognized for the simple fact that this association is not sufficiently well known and the rocks have never been analyzed for platinum. Dr Peter Theyer Economic Geologist Department of Energy and Mines, Manitoba