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InfoMine is proud to launch our Suppliers Editorial Section. Built specifically to showcase how mining suppliers are using their products and services to improve mining worldwide.
Each week, the Buyer's Guide will post at least two editorials submitted by any mining supplier that has an interesting story to tell about their products or services.
Links to these editorials are live on the main supplier page and will be viewed over 6,000 times per month. In addition all editorials will be archived and searchable from a page specifically for supplier editorials.
Take a look today! Do you have an interesting product or service story to tell? Please send us your editorials today.
Two Spanish properties for sale, option or joint venture have been listed on the Property Exchange in the Company/Property section. The María Luisa Mine is a copper-lead-zinc mine with Au and Ag, located in the southwest of Spain. The Sepiolite deposit is located in Almazán in the province of Soria, 170 km northeast of Madrid.
Mergers and Acquisitions Take Center Stage in June.
Mining-focused media attention has swung in recent weeks to mergers and acquisitions, centered predominantly around the proposed merger of two Canadian companies, gold and precious metal producers Wheaton River Minerals and Iamgold Corporation, and hostile bidders US-based Coeur d'Alene Mines and Golden Star Resources.
Also, attracting significant industry attention mid-month was speculation (later confirmed by Brazil's Cia Vale do Rio Doce) over the sale of Canadian group Brascan Corp's 43% stake in Canadian diversified miner Noranda to CVRD. Rumors suggest that CVRD may also be interested in acquiring a controlling stake in the Canadian mining-metals giant.
Use NewsMine's Advanced Search to keep track of breaking North American Merger and Acquisition News in mining.
Further, it seems likely that the acquisition of Australian Emperor Mines by South African-based gold producer Durban Roodepoort Deep will soon become a reality .During the month, directors of Emperor Mines endorsed a slightly-higher revised takeover offer from South African-based gold producer Durban Roodepoort Deep, virtually guaranteeing the Aussie-based Fiji gold miner Emperor Mines will be fully absorbed to create a leading international pure gold play.
Media speculation during the month also surrounded another South African gold miner's rumored interest in Uzbekistan's AIM-listed Oxus Gold as a way of boosting Harmony's flagging financial performance, currently being undermined by its loss-making South African operations.
Use NewsMine's Advanced Search to keep track of breaking South American, Australian and South African Merger and Acquisition News in mining.
Politics and Economics in June: State Flexes its Muscle in Mining
Besides mergers and acquisitions, the economic ramifications and industry reaction to the pending introduction of mining royalties in Peru and Chile has featured prominently in South American, South African and International mining circles. Further, debate and industry attention has maintained its focus on affirmative action in South Africa as well as foreign ownership of South African mining/exploration assets.
Use NewsMine's Advanced Search to keep track of more breaking Economic and Political News in mining.
- If you would like to delete files, e-mail or any other item in Windows
and you do not want them 'moved' to your recycle bin, you can permanently
delete the item(s) by holding down the SHIFT key and hitting Delete on your
keyboard. This may/ may not be useful when deleting tons of spam.
- To open Windows Explorer quickly, hold down the Windows Start key on
your key board and hit the E character.
A Fully Integrated Mining Software Solution from Resource Modelling to Financial Evaluation
Micromine Pty Ltd and IC-FinEval are pleased to announce the recent partnership between the two companies to offer our joint client base a unique, full integrated software and consulting solution, that enables users to carry their mineral resource projects from geological and engineering modelling and design, through to internationally accepted financial evaluation, risk assessment and decision making.
The project evaluation software tool, IC-MinEval, was developed by IC-FinEval at the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College London, over a 4 year period from the late 1990's. It is an internationally recognised product for financial mineral resource modelling, and is accepted by international finance houses in London, Frankfurt, New York and Johannesburg.
Micromine is internationally recognised as being at the forefront of innovative software solutions to the mineral resources industry over the last 16 years, providing software solutions from exploration through to production.
The software is available for evaluation and review on the InfoMine website as well as Micromine's home site. An IC-MinEval-generated gold case history financial model is available through IC-FinEval's home site. A series of fully certified IC-MinEval-generated project finance models and linked training initiatives are available on the EduMine site.
This month SRK Consulting has joined the ranks of our "Employers of Choice" team on the Careers Home Page. CareerMine continues to be the most popular site for Mining Industry jobs on the Internet. We get several emails monthly from subscribers who have landed their ideal job thanks to InfoMine/CareerMine.
CareerMine has recently partnered with WHAT Oil and Gas Jobs to bring you a combined listing of jobs for the global resource industries.
You will find extensive opportunities for engineers, geologists, management, and many others shared between the mining, oil, gas and other resource industries. Visit this link regularly to see the latest opportunities in the combined job database.
New EduMine Site Enrollment for Konkola Copper Mines
Recent site enrollments include Konkola Copper Mines (PLC), a large copper producer based in the Copperbelt Province of the Republic of Zambia, employing 10500 employees. In addition to providing unrestricted access to EduMine resources for mine personnel, Technical Training Services at KCM have registered 11 geotechnical staff to complete certification in a pre-set program of 13 courses in rock engineering and mining on EduMine. Select Konkola Copper Mines in the drop-down box under Mine Site Campuses above for more information on KCM. Click here for more information on the Site Enrollment option.
Multi-Lingual Online Courses for Mining
To increase the geographical coverage of its online mining courses, EduMine is converting its courseware template to provide seamless multi-lingual functionality. A prototype Spanish version of the template is currently available ... as well as a small but growing library of Spanish courses.
The XML technology on which the courseware template is based can now be rapidly deployed in other languages as well, such as Portuguese or French. In fact, the new version of the courseware template can be switched from one language to another by changing a single parameter. Please click here to learn more.
Coal Miner's Confusion
Q:Do you know how to confuse a coal miner?
A:Show him two shovels and then ask him to take his pick
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Here's a sample of the information on "Adit" available on InfoMine. This is just an example of how our search provides excellent and pertinent results for any topic you wish to explore. Why not try your own favorite topic now? |
This article is copyrighted by the author and all rights reside with the author Jerry Dolph.
 North Idahoan Duffy White bills himself as an opal specialist. In reality, though, he is a fine craftsman who works in many different phases of the creation and jewelry and its repair.
One relatively rare "Gemstone" he takes particular care and effort in and enjoys working with, is the fossilized and opal(ized) remains of ammonite shells. Duffy even drives from his home in North Idaho, all the way up to Lethbridge, Alberta, to buy ammonite from the Blood Indian Tribe.
Ammonites were sea creatures that lived during a geological time-span of about 275 million years, from the upper Silurian until the end of the Cretaceous period, between 66 and 70 million years ago. Ammonites were mollusks that lived in coiled shells. Its modern day relative is the chambered Nautilus of the Pacific Ocean.
In laborious, technical terms, ammonites were invertebrate fossils, mollusks, and cephalopods. They were members of the animal kingdom, mollusca phylums, and of the Cephalopoda class. Their subclass was tetrabranchiata, and order ammonoidea. Marine life and shells, like the ammonite's, are separated into chambers, and divided by divisions, or walls, called sutures. They are the most distinctive of all Mesozoic Marine invertebrates.
Bits and pieces of ammonite can be found all over the world, but its extremely rare to find one in-tact. Most have been preserved in chalky clays, limestone or limy shales. In that form of fossilization, their shells are neither well preserved nor opalescent. They are dull, unassuming and chalky.
This is not the case with the ammonites discovered by Santo Carborne in the late 1960's, however. At that site, near Lethbridge, in Southern Alberta, ammonites were buried in an iron rich shale. Gradually, over millions of years, the shale that entombed them was transformed into a dark jasper-like rock through tectonic pressures. The process protected their shells and allowed for their mineralization. Pressure and mineralization had combined to make their shells hard, durable and translucent. Originally, millions of years ago, ammonite shells consisted of aragonite, a substance similar to mother of pearl.
These fossilized remains of ammonite retain much of the creature's original chemical and physical properties, but they vary from stone to stone.
The shell's mineral composition is:
- Aragonite : 96 percent
- Iron : 1 percent
- Silica : 1 percent
- Titanium : 0.6 percent
Shells also contain traces of Copper, barium, magnesium and conchilin.
It's refractive index is 1.52 to 1.58, bi-refringency .155, specific gravity 2.70, hardness on the MOHS scale 4. Under ultraviolet light ammonite fluoresces to a mustard yellow.
Ammonite has an opalescent effect that breaks the light into all the colors of the spectrum. Uniformly red or green specimens are considered especially valuable, but gold-colored, deep blue, or purple examples are highly prized as well.
What all of this means is that these snail-like critters lived in the prehistoric oceans of the world, at last count, up until some 70 million years ago.
This writer can visualize a single enormous 3' to 5' in diameter snail-like creature, who we'll call Amy, without considering gender and for want of a better name. She lived in a prehistoric sea that once covered present-day Lethbridge, Alberta. There she fed on vegetation and made her way (at a snails pace) across the sea's floor. Ideally, she liked to live in about 50 feet of water.
There were enormous sea monsters there with her, as well, like giant 100 foot long sharks that swam quickly by on their way to rip something to pieces and devour it whole. Sharks so large they would make the Jaws, of modern movie fame, seem like a mere minnow.
 Then (as one school of thought has it) there came a blinding light from above, as an enormous fiery meteor roared across the prehistoric skies. A few moments later it impacted the earth (as Duffy theorizes) near what is now the Yucatan Peninsula. It crashed to earth, with an impact of what must have been the force of dozens of hydrogen bombs exploding at once, instantly sending shock waves and vibrations across the land and seas. (Those vibrations may have even shaken the water around our little Amy as well. )The meteor's impact could have forced a mountain sized cloud of dirt-thick dust up into the atmosphere where it encircled the earth and remained for some time. That mass of dust was so enormous that it even blotted out light from the sun and cooled off the earth causing vegetation to die. If the school of thought is right, it would certainly account for the sudden turning point in the existence of all species of life on our planet.
It would have spelled doom for many of the toothy, hairy, scaly, slimy, and other odd looking critters, living on the earth at the time. Especially docile sea creatures like our little ammonite Amy, who lived on the sea floor. She was covered and entombed by the fall-out of thick dust (which is known today as bentonite) as it settled around her (while she was still alive.
That takes us forward in time and back up to Duffy White again. He says, "Ammonites are found within ten feet of the bentonite layer, one way or the other. Colored ammonite has been found in Montana and South Dakota as well. In fact, I visited the Smithsonian Institute when we were back there in Washington DC. , and saw that they've got a big colored ammonite there that came from South Dakota. It looks very similar to the ammonite they find up at Lethbridge. "(Considering the distance from South Dakota to Lethbridge, that must have been one-big meteor.
Duffy continued, "A company known as the Korite Corporation sells ammonite to businesses. Korite has many of its mineral claims on one side of the St. Maries River which is just above Lethbridge, Alberta. The company also has mineral claims in Montana as well. The land (and mineral claims) on the other side of the St. Maries River is owned by the Blood Indian Tribe. They are an offshoot of the Crow Indian Nation and have their annual 'Pow-wows' at Custer's Battle Field in south eastern Montana.
"So here we are, Indians digging for ammonite on one side of the river and the Korite Company mining for it on the other. The river between them marks the edge of Blood Indian tribal lands and runs down into the Old Man River. It's only a short distance from there to Lethbridge.
"After high water, many Canadian hobbyist get permits and search for pieces of ammonite along the banks of the Old Man River. They find it in the gravel, right along its shore-line, after high-water has washed it down stream out of the St. Maries River. I don't think most of those folks go to the pains of meticulously recovering and preserving the ammonite that Korite and some of the other operators do, though.
"Most of the Blood Indian Tribe's income comes from natural pools of gas and oil that are located beneath their reservation. They lease their lands out to companies that come in and develop those energy resources."
As Duffy talked I stood looking at a photograph he'd taken of the steep embankment on one side of the St. Maries River. I noticed the ground was an ashen grey in color. I asked him why that was. He replied, "Oh, its just the color of the formations up there. Over millions of years the prehistoric oceans dried up, then the present day St. Maries River washed away the topsoil of the sea's floor and cut a 100 foot deep (or whatever it is) canyon down through it to where the water level is today. The embankment beneath the bentonite layers, from the top of the cut down to the river, is very steep and shale hard."
He pointed to the photo and continued, "Right along the rim-rock there (just below the ancient sea floor) are five layers of bentonite." (I thought of how enormous the impact of the huge meteor must have been as he talked about the fall-out of dust.)
He continued, "There are six Blood Indian Tribal members who work with ammonite recovery. Rocky Braverock is the head honcho of the operation. They park their pickup trucks near the edge of the cliff up above the rim-rock. Then they tie ropes onto their truck's bumpers and throw the other ends down over the edge of the cliff. And, lowering themselves down over the edge of the cliff, they hang on the ropes and dig into the five bentonite layers with hand picks looking for pieces of ammonite". He finished by saying, "They've been doing that for six years now."
I asked him if it was six years ago that Blood Indians had found ammonite there. He replied, "Oh no, they've known it was on their property all along. They'd been finding it on the river bank down below." He paused, deep in thought, as he pondered the photograph. Then he said, "It is not an easy stone to go and get".
He showed me another photograph that he'd taken on a recent trip to the reservation. "The people in this photograph are Rocky Braverock and three other tribal members. They are the ammonite Crew. There are two more of them, but they weren't there that day".
He then picked up another photograph that depicted four men on a steep incline. He explained, "The Indians are climbing up the bank toward the rim-rock from below finding pieces of ammonite in the shale beneath them that's fallen down out of the bentonite layers from above. They have to dig for it there too, though, because that shale is harder than it looks.
"The best ammonite specimens have never been in the water. Water deteriorates the quality of the stone".
Then, in an inspired moment, he motioned with a wave of his hand for me to follow him outside through the back door of his garage. I did and was I surprised to see little Amy, or at least what was left of her, laying on his concrete patio at our feet. Time had broken away part of the coil of her shell. What was left of her was still about two feet in diameter, though. I thought of how it had taken 70 million years for her to finally end up laying on the concrete in front of us. That was, of course, after nearly being blasted out of existence by a meteor, and then entombed in stone all of that time.
I asked Duffy about "her" and he replied, "It weighs about 90 pounds, and is colored on both sides. It cost me about $1,700.00".
I was taken back by that amount of money and commented that the Blood Indians must be making a tidy little sum for their tribe by selling ammonite. He agreed, "Yeah, I think they are because its so popular. It's very expensive too, some outfits sell it for from 40 to 100 dollars a square inch".
I remembered that he'd said colored ammonite was found in Montana and asked where specifically in the state that would be. He said, "North of Great Falls, I think. Rock clubs over in that area would probably know exactly where".
He went on to tell how ammonite is prepared for jewelry. "It takes a lot of time to cut and 95 percent of it is not suitable for jewelry. I throw pieces away by the ton. A lot of rock clubs would probably like to have what I don't use (he keeps only jewelry grade stones and has his own private collection as well)". He continued, "There are many different colors in the stone; purple and blue are the ones I like to find. If I'm going to grind a purple stone, unless it has some other very good brilliant color in it, I just cut it. Solid purple is a very rare stone."
I marveled at a gold (colored) watch and its band laying in a display case nearby. The band looked as if it was covered with gold nuggets and could be very expensive. He noticed my interest and said, "That watch is worth about $1,000 because of the gold nuggets and the ammonite in the band. These nuggets, by the way, came from Murray (one of North Idaho's gold rush towns of the 1880's). I buy the nuggets from a fella who pans for them over there."
The band had several pieces of green ammonite in it, as well. They were beautiful and seemed to shimmer, changing colors, and shapes in the light as I moved it around. I asked if he'd bought the band from a factory somewhere and then cut and shaped the pieces of ammonite to fit into it. He replied, "No I buy metal leaves already prepared, plate, and tubing, and the gold nuggets. Then I build the bands out of those materials from there." He continued, "No that watch band isn't something that you can just go out and buy and then put stones into. You have to build the whole thing from scratch."
I asked if he knew of any others who were cutting ammonite. He replied, "No I don't think there are very many ammonite cutters around. Or at least I've never met another one. It takes a lot of time. To cut a stone it takes probably about twohours. Then after you've cut out a pretty stone, from there you go on to put it into the settings."
I asked if, after finished cutting and correctly sizing the pieces of ammonite, he crimped them into the settings or justglued them in. He replied, "No you never glue a stone in. You use neuron mountings and things like that."
I was almost hypnotized by the wealth of ammonite specimens and gold nuggets on the table in front of me and asked, "Do you go up to Lethbridge very often?" He replied, "Well I go up every time I run out of ammonite." He gestured toward his back patio and continued, "I don't want to cut into that one (I was glad too because he was talking about defenseless little Amy). Yeah I probably buy a thousand dollars worth of ammonite when I go up there, or something like that." I asked, "Can you sell enough ammonite to justify the trip's expenses and all?" He replied, "Yes I sell it at rock shows. What I do is buy my $1000 worth of ammonite from the Indians and then I come back home here and prepare it. Then I go out to rock shows and sell enough to get my $1000 back. I just came back from the big rock show in Portland, Oregon. I sold all that I had with me almost as soon as I got there."
I mused, "That's pretty neat to have the ability to take a rock, that use to be alive in the earth's prehistoric times, and fashion it into something that's as beautiful as what you have here. Did it take a long time for you to learn how and get good enough at it to come out with quality pieces?" He replied, "I've been doing ammonite for about--well this is my 7th year. Its not an easy stone to work with, its different from working with opal and things. Its something that's fairly new too. I don't think there have even been any books written about how to do it yet. I puttered around with it for about a year, teaching myself how to do it, before I could make what I would call a quality piece. I didn't know of any other cutters at the time so I didn't have anyone to ask. I still don't. You never see finished ammonite advertised either. You may see an advertisement for rough ammonite somewhere, but not for finished pieces."
It was exciting to be standing there interviewing a pioneer ammonite rock cutter like Duffy. I said, "Then this is something that hasn't really taken hold yet and its still real popular too." He returned with, "Well its real popular yes, but its very hard to do. "
I noticed a few paper-thin, pieces of ammonite lying near a grinder and asked about them. He responded, "If you get a nice thick piece of shell, you can make naturals out of it. Otherwise it's going to be so thin that you'll have to cap it like you do a piece of Idaho opal. Then you'll have to put it on a black piece of basonite that will reflect its light and color. First grind the ammonite out thin and then you're ready to put it on the basonite. You grind it on a grinder like this one."
Duffy had a template laying nearby with many different shapes holed through it. I asked how it worked, "Well first I find the appropriate shape (that's been ordered) and then mark the ammonite piece to fit that shape using this template. Then I just cut it out. If someone wanted a certain shaped ammonite, all they would have to do is draw it out on a piece of paper and I could cut that shape too."
He noticed that I was admiring his extensive collection of tools. I was impressed by the amount of grinding, polishing and cutting equipment that he had. He went on, "It's important to have lots of tools to work with. If you haven't got em', it's just about impossible to do an ammonite."
I asked, "If a reader in, say ... Texas wanted more information or even some colored ammonite like this, how would he get it?" He hesitated and then replied, "Well he could get it from me by writing-Duffy White, P. O. Box 2, Rathdrum, Idaho 83858. My telephone number is (208) 687-0213.
"He couldn't just go up there to Lethbridge and dig ammonite on his own, though. First of all if he got caught on tribal lands without their permission, or a guide, he could get shot. The Indians have been ripped off before and they don't take kindly to it at all. Someone even went onto their reservation once and stole a bunch of ammonite that tribal members had mined out and left laying on the river bank over night. They found out about the theft when they went back to pick it up the next day.
"Besides that, if you aren't a Canadian citizen you aren't allowed to dig for ammonite in Alberta at all. You can't get a permit. Even Canadian citizens have to get a special permit from their government, before they can dig."
I asked if he'd had any problems with Canadian customs after he'd gotten his ammonite and was heading back into the United States again, over the border on his way home.
Duffy replied, "There is no question about transporting ammonite across the American-Canadian border once I've gotten it. I can buy it alright. Canadian border officials would probably even give me an export permit if I was worried about it and really wanted one.
"I can get ammonite any time of the year right now and there's nothing in the near future predicted to change that either, except for maybe the weather."
I asked how big of an area it was where ammonite was found. He said, "It is a spot on the St. Maries River about two miles long and a quarter of a mile wide. The area is about 10 miles east of Lethbridge on the St. Maries River. The river runs down through the reservation. Its reservation on one side and white-man's territory on the other." He smiled.
I commented on how reservation lands American Indians were forced to take, back in the frontier days of the American West, were deliberately shaped so they didn't include areas containing wealth such as gold and whatever else might be there. Duffy chuckled and said, (referring to the rich Blood Indian Tribal Lands) "Looks like someone missed a big one there doesn't it?"
I asked if there were any other kinds of fossilized creatures in the Lethbridge area. He replied, "Yes there are many fossils out around there besides ammonite-animals and things of that nature." Then I said, jokingly, "Dinosaurs too?" Without cracking a smile, or even hesitating, he surprised me by replying, "The dinosaurs are a little bit further to the north."
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Meet Derek Osachoff!
