As many of you know, I recently made a trip out to Nevada to do some environmental work at an abandoned gold mine outside of Elko.

This trip consisted of multiple sample collection of some run-off waters in a stream, some sediment samples, and aquatic and biotic plant uptake survey. In short, we're looking at this site to ensure that it's history isn't interferring with things in the present. A risk assessment.

I thought I'd share a few pictures and tell a little more about what we're doing up on a mountain (around 6800' elevation)...

Here's a picture of our jobsite (a small portion of it).



As you can see, there's not much around anymore. This mine closed several tens of years ago. The process that was utilized in this mine was unique in that the material that they were mining contained only trace amounts of gold. The process involved mining the rock/clay material that you see above, stacking in HUGE heap piles and then trickling a cyanide mixture down through the pile. The cyanide leached out the gold that was resident in the rock. Ultimately, at the bottom of the pile, once gravity had taken its course, the cyanide mixture was reclaimed and put through another process to get the gold out of the mix. As you can imagine, this wasn't exactly a cheap process and they had to mine something to the tune of 3 tons of ore out of the ground in order to recover only 0.2 ounces. That's right... two-tenths of an ouce per 3 tons of protolith! Impressive huh?



Here we see my fat butt up to my crotch in snow. I was trying to get over near one of the heap piles when I walked out on a snow drift. Obviously, the top of the snow had a thin layer of ice that supported me up until this point. To get out, I had to pretty much lay on my side and 'roll'. Lucky for me, someone had a camera to capture my glory. BTW, I wasn't touching any 'earth'... the snow basically just decided to spare me and suspend me. I believe it was about 5 feet deep around this point.



As I mentioned, we collected several samples on this trip and elected that a helicopter was our best mode of transportation around the site as a vehicle would be VERY hard pressed to get around up there (see snow above). I had come up with the idea to rent snow mobiles and cruise up there however; the Federal Bureau of Land Management struck that idea down because of land useage issues and laws... hence, a helicopter it was!

In this picture, we're collecting water and sediment samples downstream from the gigantic heaps that I had mentioned earlier. No sample results as of yet but, based on some past monitoring, I don't think we'll have any problems at all.

All in all, it was a very interesting trip and I was able to scratch off another state on my 'been-to' list....

Feel free to ask questions... I think this is a VERY neat site and I'd love to tell more about it if you're curious.... serious inquiries please...

RP

 

Did they let you pilot the helicopter?

I have to say it looks quite amazing and interesting.

 

Nope. Didn't get to fly it ( I did offer to give it a good going over with Meguiar's -- HAHAHA... no, seriously, I did) but, I did ride up front on the trip back from the site (about 55 min, one way, flight)... needless to say, being my first time in a helicopter, that was COOL AS HECK!

RP

 

Cool.

We did some stuff like that in my environmental science class.

What kind of major did you take in college? Im going to transfer to Texas A&M next spring, and probably go into agriculture (not sure what specifically though).

 

RP, what part of Navada was that? Also, did you drive or fly? If you drove out there, how long did it take? Im wondering because my parenst have been throwing around the idea of taking a trip to Vagas at some point.







BTW - Welcome back.




















Still want a Roody Burger?

 

Find any gold?








Can i have it if you did??

 

I've had some experiences with the deep snow too (though I dont think it was quite as deep as that)

Me laughing at my friends falling in the snow:


Revenge, me falling in the snow (ACTION SHOT):


I got the shoe back...I was too busy LMAO so my sister had to get it for me:

 

I hold two undergrad degrees from Western Kentucky University. One in Geography (specialization-Hydrology), the second in Geology (specialization-Environmental).

I was between Elko and Eureka. We flew into Salt Lake and drove over. The plane tickets were UNGODLY into Elko so, the 4 of us rented an Excursion and made the trip... talk about a land yacht! I would suspect that a drive to Vegas would take 15 hours or so though. Definately more time that I'd care to spend behind the wheel. HA! Just jump on Southwest out of Nashville... probably wouldn't be more than $300 each.

I think I need to lay off the Roody Burgers... hahaha... maybe my fatt butt wouldn't have fallen through if I'd left about 25 pounds at home. HAHA!

RP

 

LOL @ John... where was that at?

RP... that picture of you almost waist-high in the snow... that's my worst fear about snow, sinking into it and it breaking beneath you and then eventually dying. I'd be skeered and light-footed as hell!

 

Rocky Mountain NP in colorado

 

Heh, my dad always tells me the story about flying in his boss's helicopter and noticing the front door was still open. I guess at speed and altitude you can't open the door up any to get it to close right, so he flew along with it hanging open an inch.

 

Don't worry, your wallet will lose the weight for you when you order a few of them.

 

RP, Dude

I got to get a job with your company. Great scenery, helicopters, what am I missing here?

All the jobs I get consists of a CME 55 drill rig in the middle of NYC on the sidewalk with all the people asking "did ya hit oil yet"? Meanwhile, my truck is getting a $115 parking ticket and the rig is getting a ticket for not having company identification letters that are 3 inches tall.

Then the boss complains that your spending too much and your over budget.

Guess the grass is greener on the other side of the fence (or at least in Kentucky)

 

You bastard!
My only question is, how do I get a gig like that? I'm sitting in the office writing a Phase 1 today, doing some test holes for a municipal well tomorrow, and going near Evansville for a Site Assessment later in the week - a far cry from playing in the mountains with a helicopter!

I don't know much about hydrocyanic acid, but I know it is very soluble in water - with the snow melts in that area, I imagine it wouldn't stay around long. I'm guessing most of the surface water you are sampling is from recent snow melt (and lots of it!), so any remaining cyanide would be greatly diluted in a sample. Have any surface water samples been collected in the summer, or is this an area where the only precipitation comes from snow fall in the winter?

I'm making the assumption that this is all hard rock country , so is groundwater being/going to be addressed? If so, how and where? downgradient in the alluvium/colluvium in the nearest valley? Or there any known faults in the area that water could get to and be gone?

 

HAHA! Phase I eh? The real question is where they get their electricty and how is the facility heated? LOL!! Near Evansville? I hope you're on the right side of the river (AKA: Not my side).



All of the water that you're seeing is generally produced from the melt. Otherwise, the climate is nearly desert with around 7" of precip annually but, due to the miracle of springs, water flows year round I'm told and is sampled quarterly (NPDES Permit). There are also multitudes of wells monitoring three aquifers (ranging in depth from 15 to 90 feet bgs).

Hard rock, well, yes and no. Hydrothermally altered to hell and back is a better synopsis. Groundwater -- see above. Other vallies that are down gradient from the 'heap' are also monitiored or have been monitored and are clean (and not sampled any longer). Yep. One fault. Three wells stuck in it. (upgradient, mid-gradient, and down gradient). It's very competent based on aquifer testing and some other things they've looked at... I'd have to really go back through the geological sections of the initial and past assessments to give you more data there though. It's been stuided VERY thououghly.

Heck man, this is a VERY rare site and the first time I've even come close to a helicopter. I'm typically the Phase I/II guy with an occasional tinker into remediation and such. We're playing around with a proprietary ChemOx now on some of our groundwater sites and all I can say is 'WOW'. This isn't your standard potassium permanganate or 'honey'... lasts MUCH longer and is much less dense (1.2 or something I think)....

I'll be in Washington State as of Wed on my most favoritestststst site in the whole wide world playing with Pb, Zn, Cd and a very stubborn reverse-ion system... I hate that damn thing.

RP