Tuesday, February 26, 2013

A Monster Gold Deposit!

On break for the July 4th celebration in Flat Alaska. Dr. Paul Graff stands on running board of the
Flat Alaska hotel limo adjacent to the Flat recreation seen in the photo to the left.

The Northern Miner (Feb 11-17, 2013) described Donlin Creek as a MONSTER GOLD DEPOSIT with more than 43 million ounces of gold drilled! It is currently ranked as one of the 10 largest gold deposits found in history! The deposit is approximately 8 km in length, with much of the drilling focus in a 3 km area. This means that during mining and exploration of the remaining 5 km of the deposit will likely result in considerable expansion of the gold reserves.

To get some concept on how big this deposit is, try comparing it to one of the more extraordinary world-class gold deposits in history - the Homestake mine in South Dakota. The Homestake operated for 123 years, making it one of the longest lived gold mines in history. Production at the Homestake began in 1878 and ceased in 2001 after the mine produced 39.8 million ounces of gold. The Homestake was also one of the longest listed stocks on the NYSE in history! The Northern Miner also reported the Donlin Creek to be the largest undeveloped gold deposit in the world! 

For 7 geologists, this is a lifetime achievement and discovery - how many people in history can claim discovery of such a monster gold deposit? And I was one of those seven who made that discovery and was honored at the 2009 PDAC Convention in Toronto Canada.

I thank God WestGold hired me for my mapping skills. I feel blessed I had the opportunity to work with some incredible people for those two summers of 1988 and 1989, and I got to drive them nuts with my pranks!

Anyway, WestGold (Western Gold Exploration and Mining) also operated the Bima Dredge off Nome, Alaska and thus the company was a major company that could have built itself into a major mining company. But somewhere at the top, things were not to be.