Miners have pulled gold, silver, arsenic and tungsten out of the ore in southwestern Tooele County dating back to the 1860s.

Now, under a proposal pitched to the Bureau of Land Management, the Clifton-Gold Hill Mining District may become home to the area's first large mining operation to tap gold and silver deposits.

Seattle-based Desert Hawk Corp., wants to set up camp in the west desert and process a million tons of ore a year for two years. The entire life of the mining operation would be for six years, with another three years to reclaim the land.

Desert Hawk President Rick Havenstrite said about $12 million has been spent so far to get the project rolling, including money sunk into documentation for regulators that there won't be a problem with acid mine drainage, which is acidic water laden with iron, sulfate and other metals.

"Our system doesn't have sulfate in it — that's the beautiful thing," he said.

What's been dubbed the Kiewit Mine Project has gone through an environmental analysis by the Bureau of Land Management because part of it is on federal lands east of Iabapah and west of the salt flats. The public has a chance to weigh in on the proposal through March 14 and a similar public review of a state mining permit has already been completed.

Jim Springer, spokesman with the state Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, said no negative comments were received on the project, which involves exploratory drilling, blasting, an open-pit mine and a process to extract the gold and silver using cyanide.

While the division is a long way off in the permitting arena, the project's proposed use of what's called "cyanide heap leach pads," would be the state's only active mining operation using this extraction method.

Using cyanide

Cyanide is highly toxic and state mining regulators say the word itself alarms people. They say if it is handled properly it is safe in these types of applications.

The compound has been used in gold mining since the 1880s and continues to be used in more than 90 percent of the world's gold production today. In neighboring Nevada, there are about 30 mines that use the cyanide process to separate gold and silver from ore.

"Even though this may be slightly new to Utah, the regulatory environment is well known," Havenstrite said, adding that it is a fairly simple process.

Basically, the mounds of rock are piled on a lined pad that receive a cyanide solution through a drip application, he said.

"We mine it, crush it and sprinkle it on," he said. "Cyanide bonds to the gold and silver and carries it out. They are all in liquid form."

In its analysis of the project, the BLM notes that the cyanide would be trucked to the site from Nevada from a company with employees certified in safety procedures for handling the compound.

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Montreal-based explorer Colt Resources(GTP-V) tumbled to a new 52-week low after announcing it received two experimental mining licenses allowing it to advance its tungsten and gold exploration projects in Portugal, likely not the reaction the company was anticipating. The stock dropped nearly 16% to close Feb. 20 at a year low of 32.5¢. The next day it shares rebounded, gaining 17% to end at 38¢.    

Government officials granted the junior a 45-sq.-km experimental mining licence or EML for its Tabuaço tungsten project located some 300 km north-northeast from the country’s capital Lisbon and 100 km east-southeast of Porto.

The advanced-stage tungsten project sits near the city of Vila Real in Colt’s 100%-owned 218-sq.-km Armamar-Meda exploration concession, which partially surrounds its Penedono and Moimenta-Almendra concessions.

The EML covers the Tabuaço skarn-type tungsten deposits, including the Sao Pedro Aguias (SPA) and Aveleira tungsten resource areas, exploration targets on the SPA-Aveleira Gap, the Quinta-Tavora zone, and the East bank of the Tavora River.

The licence came after Colt spent nearly six years exploring the property, after staking it directly from the Portuguese government in December 2007.

Since then the junior — with big ambitions of bringing the country’s next gold and tungsten mines on stream in the next two to three years — carried out extensive outcrop sampling work followed by a diamond drilling program. To date, it has punched more than 100 holes or 11,400 metres at Tabuaço to help delineate a NI 43-101 mineral resource.  

The most recent estimate, published last October, show the SPA and Aveleira deposits host 1.49 million tonnes grading 0.55% tungsten trioxide (WO₃) in indicated, with another 1.23 million tonnes of 0.59%  WO₃  in inferred, using a 0.3% cutoff grade.  

While the Montreal-based entity aims to keep exploring the tungsten property, its experimental mining program will focus on the SPA deposit, where it will excavate an access adit and a vertical shaft to test the proposed mining method, evaluate the rock mechanical conditions, and recover a bulk sample to complete pilot ore concentration work.

Earlier this year, Colt provided a small representative sample of drill core to a Chinese metallurgical services provider to test recoveries. It reported flotation followed by acid leaching returned overall tungsten recoveries of 87%, as well as a final concentrate grading around 70% WO₃ from an ore sample containing 0.64% WO_3.

“These final metallurgical test results further demonstrate the potential to develop a successful tungsten mining operation at Tabuaço,” Nikolas Perrault, the company’s CEO, stated in a Jan. 30 release.

Colt intends to wrap up a preliminary economic assessment on the project by July, Perrault said, adding it is actively pursuing a joint-venture partner for Tabuaço so it could concentrate on its gold projects.

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China has approved funding to develop core technologies for nuclear-powered ships. Professionals speculated that Beijing is planning to build nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

Reported by China Daily reported, China Shipbuilding Industry Corp. said that one of its research institutions has received State approval and funding to formally begin research on core technologies and safety for nuclear-powered ships.

A senior researcher at the People's Liberation Army's Academy of Military Science told the Daily that Nuclear-powered ships can travel farther and are more reliable compared with used conventional propulsion. Factors make the ships a wise choice for polar expeditionary missions.

Reported many military followers link the announcement to widespread speculation that China may develop its own nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.  
China launched its first conventional aircraft carrier last year which is still undergoing trials.

Profesional said that China already has the technology and industrial capability to develop and build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.  

The only operating aircraft carrier outside the US is France's Charles de Gaulle, also the first French nuclear-powered surface vessel.

As we have known, thanks to tungsten’s particular properties, tungsten products are widely used in aerospace and aviation, especially under harsh environments.


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