Calling All Experienced Miners and Prospectors

Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
OK, I've asked for your help, and some of you have delivered BIG time. Now I'm going to beg on your sympathies. About two weeks ago, I went into the hospital for open heart surgery.

I arrived about 4:30 a.m. They ran me through all the standard intake stuff, getting identification, insurance, putting those cute little hospital bracelets on my wrist, etc. They put me in a lovely hospital gown, started an I.V., then I was visited by members of the surgical team, anesthesiology, etc. Sometime around 7:00 a.m. they wheeled me into the O.R. The anesthesiologist put me to sleep, and the real fun began.

My cardiac surgeon cut my chest from the top of the sternum to the bottom. Then he used a really cool saw I wish I had in my shop to cut the sternum in half, top to bottom.

Meanwhile, a second team splayed my legs apart like a frog and started harvesting the main vein in my right leg to be used as the graft. They worked laparoscopically, which, while it doesn't leave a large incision up and down your leg, means they're poking and prodding their way along separating the vein from everything it's connected to. When they were done, they had harvested from my ankle to my groin. The bruising is a technicolor delight.

Meanwhile, back up on my chest, the surgeon has placed a medieval device called a rib spreader between the two halves of my newly split rib cage. It has hooks that keep it from moving, and they start cranking on it like a wood clamp that opens the chest instead of clamping it together.

Once in, they attached me to a bypass machine, turned the machine on, and stopped my heart. They then started taking the harvested vein, sewing one end to the aorta just above the heart, then bringing the other end down to just past the blockage in the cardiac artery. They attach it, then repeat three more times.

When they were happy with their seamstress work, they restarted the heart and disconnected me from the bypass machine. Finally, they used wires to pull the two halves of the sternum back together and twisted them together to keep it together till it heals in about 6 months to a year. The wires stay in permanently.

I'm told I was on the table for about 6 hours. I am what is known as a CABG 4-way (Coronary Artery Bypass Graft X 4).

So that's the short version. It's why I was away for a few days. I've spent most of my time since coming home flat on my back in bed. I've been using a Kindle tablet to read and post on the forum. It's been great to talk to you all, but the Kindle is definitely limited in what it can do.

Each day, I spend some time at a table my wife set up in our family room with my laptop, where I can tend to administrator tasks and write longer posts like this one.

So, between having a broken body, and about half a brain from the anesthesia, I'm still pretty limited in what I can do.

Now, don't you all feel sorry for me? Don't you want to help a poor, old man out?

Seriously, all things considered, I'm doing great. I don't want anyone to clutter this thread with well wishes. I'm hoping for results.

Please keep the information coming in; assay services you've used, and mineral identification groups and sites to help these new guys identify their rocks. Anything we can use to put together a great sticky post we can all direct the new guys to that can help them figure out if they've got rocks or riches.

Thanks everyone for reading. It was very helpful for me to write it all out. I hope it will inspire you to find some resources to help build the thread we're working on.

Dave
 
As Dave knows, I beat him to the Zipper Club by a few weeks. My procedure was Septal Myectomy including removal of Left Atrial Appendage.

Recovery of heart is relatively fast compared to healing of the sternum. My next round of imaging to check on this is in about three weeks. Complete healing of sternum can be from several months to a few years.

The fact that he is so busy is commendable, so long as he does not overdo it.

This project is something that has been in the back of various member brains for some time. It is a worthwhile project that will keep him very busy during recovery. Thus far, I have nothing to add in this effort.

Aging is not for wimps.

Time for more coffee.
 
Every day above ground, beats any day below ground. As the doctors saying goes, to prepare for death, learn to enjoy mud baths. That is a joke told to me by my now dead girlfriend, gone for about 2 weeks now, cancer. Enjoy the air we breath, and all little things in life. Hoping the best for both of you. Sorry, I just had to do it.
 
Every day above ground, beats any day below ground. As the doctors saying goes, to prepare for death, learn to enjoy mud baths. That is a joke told to me by my now dead girlfriend, gone for about 2 weeks now, cancer. Enjoy the air we breath, and all little things in life. Hoping the best for both of you. Sorry, I just had to do it.
Sorry for your loss mate.
Ones perspective tends to change after such events.
Take care.
 
It would be great to offer the industry the tips and tricks, the instructions, the methods, and the work arounds... Now take all of that and wrap it up with location.

Location is a generalized foundation that will always feature all those other gems of metallurgic wizardry. It encompasses host rock type, geologic formation, elemental inclusions (specific to location), fracturing, hypervelocity impact events, etc.


Every ore body will consist of an elemental consistency that will mandate specific operations, inclusive operations, and even extractive operations unique to them. Some locations you just need to walk away from...

When it comes to prospecting and mineral exploration folks have stuck to the path easily ventured, and some have gotten lucky. Others have attempted the path least ventured and remained dialed in all the way and succeeded, or got caught by that one time that that one thing happened... Equipment failure, change in wind, faulty filters, small tremor occurred....


And well... That's the trade.

With regards that one mine that I featured on these forums long ago, the big danger with that location was the amount of toxic and radio active elements within the ore bodies I was working with...

Mercury, Arsenic, Lead, Strantium, Gallium, Barium, Thorium, Uranium, Bismuth... All of those elements were in the matrix of the polymetallic replacement deposit I was working... True, the PGM, Au, and Ag counts were off the chart but really...

I decided that any number of "that one time" events just wasn't worth my life.

One big online venue that I have always frequented, and always will... Is the Gold Refining Forum. There are mining professionals like myself who can answer questions.

If by some chance GRF gets partnered up with one mining school or another and can offer a book store for novice and expert alike to review well... That would be great.

Education is a big financial world that demands it's secrets kept until payment is made. That's what the greedy people think, at any rate...

I've always used mindat.org when reviewing minerals. It's one of the best for educational purposes...

Screenshot_2022-12-31-11-10-32-99_a23b203fd3aafc6dcb84e438dda678b6.jpg
 
Found my self in an old lead/zinc district today that had a minor amount of placer gold associated with it. This picture shows limestone hosting a near-vertical structure that acted like a conduit for hydrothermal solutions. Sulfides (lead, zinc and iron) have been oxidized1681356302108.jpeg

There was also massive sulfide replacement limestone beds that were subsequently oxidized.
1681356921627.jpeg
Finally, I was poking around the old flood plain from the river and saw alluvial gravels and rocks in an oxidized soil, possibly due to accumulated black sand.
1681357294108.jpeg
I am sure the prospectors and geos will chime in.
 
Thanks. Doing better every day.

I was really hoping it would inspire a few more members to contribute assay companies, ore identification sites, etc. We've gotten a lot of good names, but we can always use more.

Dave
 
Well, I have mentioned them before but,
Spectrometer Analysis - Reed Laboratories - Fire Assays
is the only one I really have any experience with.
It's been some time ago but they seemed to be accurate and a good value.

I actually took ten pounds of this ore I found to Action Mining in Sandy Or to run on Mikes mill Wave table
and, his best guess was 2 grams per ton. A few days later I got a report back from Reed with the results of a fire assay done on the same ore...2.3 something grams per ton.
 
Last edited:
We have a number of old and new members who have a lot of experience in mining and prospecting. As we have all seen, we have had a recent influx of less experienced miners and prospectors, many of whom believe they have found the richest ores to have ever existed. Mining and prospecting have never been the focus of this forum, so we are not well positioned to help them.

So, we are calling on those of you who have the experience. Our goal is to put together a list of resources that can help them. I've googled a bit, but I've mainly found sites that would be of interest to rockhounds, not those trying to identify ores.

So, I'm asking those with experience to share sites and other resources that can help these new guys. Sites that can help them identify ores, where ores are located, geological mining maps, etc. Also, places to get their ores assayed, tests they can perform in the field or once they get their rocks home.

I will compile the results into a single post that we can sticky at the top of this section, and that everyone can just provide a link to instead of trying to provide guidance thread by thread.

I thank you in advance for any guidance you can provide.

Dave
https://www.911metallurgist.com/metallurgy/ this site has tons of information about identifying ores.
 
THANK YOU, FRUGAL REFINER! I am not sure what finally clicked but the post specifics in this forum finally clicked and I was able to Google some sites that I am going to visit to get the help I've been looking for and I wanted to share the links to them as I believe they will be the most helpful in what your asking for! So here's the links, feel free to put them however or where ever you see fit on the forum and again thank you for all the help, I shall return when the time comes to refine and I need guidance on best methods! Y'all have been so great and I'm so thankful Creator blessed the Mother Earth with your presence!
https://www.sgs.com/en-us/services/gold
https://www.epa.gov/international-cooperation/artisanal-and-small-scale-gold-mining-without-mercury
https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai...=2ahUKEwjZoqLUz77_AhU2lmoFHfanCjgQ0Qx6BAgDEAE
Gold Assay Services

Intertek › minerals › gold-assay

https://www.phoslab.com/industry/mining/
About Us - About Mining - The Mining Process
Newmont

https://www.newmont.com › about-us › the-mining-process...

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/can-you-identify-my-rock-or-mineral
Metals, Minerals, Ores and Mining Testing, Mineral Science Laboratories

https://feeco.com/innovation-center/
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/11/10/1109
https://www.azomining.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=1681
 
I want to thank everyone who contributed to this project! I was finally able to devote the time to compile all the suggestions, sort them, organize them, search out links, and put together a final list. You can see the final lists in So, you think your rocks are valuable? READ THIS BEFORE YOU POST ABOUT ORE!

Thank you all,
Dave
I didn't see the link to Mindat. This is a great site to review when trying to identify old mine sites, and may even help with identification of minerals. The site has really grown over the years.

https://www.mindat.org/
 

Latest posts

Back
Top