How to Get Started in Gold Mining

PlacerGold Equipment February 22, 2023beginner, exploration, gold mining, gold pan, gold panning, gold rush, learn to pan, lode gold, mining, paleo-placer, paleochannel, placer, placer claim, quartz vein, yukon 2 Comments

Prospecting for gold is an activity that has captured the imagination of man for thousands of years. There’s something about gold that grabs at our sense of adventure like nothing else in the natural world. The men and women who participated in the gold rushes of the 1800s left us with rich stories that are just as entertaining to read today as the day that they happened.

If you are the kind of person who loves the outdoors, craves adventure, and enjoys the sense of accomplishment that comes along with achieving difficult goals then gold prospecting is an activity that you should consider.

There are a lot of things to think about when starting to become a prospector. The first thing is to determine what your personal goals are. There are several different paths that you can take and each one will require different skills and knowledge.

Choose your path

Do you want to be a recreational prospector? That would mean prospecting as a hobby or pastime while still having another source of income. Recreational prospecting is a great hobby and very rewarding. As a recreational prospector you may or may not need to own a claim and the investments in equipment and training are minimal.

If you aspire to become a small-scale miner you’re going to have to invest a lot more time and money into your endeavors. You’ll need to hold your own claim and will require substantially more equipment than a recreational prospector.

Full-scale commercial miners are a whole different story. You’ll require advanced knowledge of gold deposits, exploration, sampling, and mining techniques as well as heavy investments in mining property and equipment.

In addition to the scale of mining activities that you plan to engage in you’ll have to think about what type of prospecting you want to do. There are two general types of gold prospecting Hard Rock and Placer.

Placer gold is the type that is deposited in river gravels and ancient stream beds. Hard rock gold is located in its original source, in actual rock. The prospecting techniques and methods used for placer and hard rock are totally different with very little overlap. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to explore for both types of gold.

Once you’ve set your goals you’ll be better positioned to set yourself up to reach them. It’s pretty difficult to start from scratch and become a full-scale commercial miner in your first year but that hasn’t stopped people from trying. If you are considering that path make sure that you have some people supporting you with legitimate mining and exploration experience.

Learn prospecting techniques

Different types of gold deposits require different techniques to find them. As a fledgling prospector, you won’t become skilled at all aspects of gold exploration right away. You’ll have to determine what type of prospecting you want to focus on.

To get started you’ll need to learn some basic geology and an understanding of where gold is likely to be found. You don’t have to become a geologist but it will be helpful to understand a few of the different rock types and environments where gold is commonly found in your area. Placer gold is found in creeks and ancient river channels while hard rock gold sources can occur pretty much anywhere in the right kinds of rock.

You’ll want to learn the difference between igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. You’ll want to be familiar with minerals that occur in the same environment as gold such as quartz, pyrite, chalcopyrite, and mica. It’s important to be able to tell the difference between fool’s gold and real gold.

For hard rock prospecting, you’ll want to be able to recognize the types of environments where gold deposits form. Some common types are epithermal, porphyry, and volcanic massive sulfide. That all might sound new to you now but through research and experience, you’ll learn to recognize the signs of these different environments.

Placer gold and hard rock gold start out the same but end up being collected in different locations. Placer gold is just in-situ gold that has been eroded and concentrated in a creek or river environment. That being said, placer deposits don’t always point towards hard rock deposits and the opposite is also true.

In placer exploration one of the most important things to understand is how to read a river. That means being able to understand which parts of a creek are likely to contain concentrations of gold. Placer gold is not distributed evenly, instead, it collects in certain parts of a stream while other parts have little to no gold.

The density difference between gold, water, and other minerals is a key component of placer prospecting. Since gold is very dense it takes a lot of energy to move it, when the water loses energy the gold will stay put. Basically, gold will accumulate in sections of the creek where the water velocity slows down. For example on the inside bends where a point bar is forming, on the downstream side of obstructions in the creek, or on riffles or old channels.

You’ll need to recognize the different types of placer deposits. Not all placer gold is found in streams.

Flood Gold is found in the upper gravels of a creek or river that actively move during floods. This gold tends to be small in size and can change from year to year. Flood gold can be found right on the surface of gravel bars in many cases.
Streambed Placer deposits are located within a stream or river channel but in stationary gravels that don’t move with seasonal floods. Streambed deposits tend to have larger gold but require more work to produce. When prospecting these deposits get as close to bedrock as you can as gold will sink to the bottom over time.
Bench Placers and Ancient Channels are remnants of old rivers that have changed course. They are basically streambed placers but the river is no longer running with water. Benches can be high above the current river and ancient channels can be in a totally different course than the river today. These are difficult to prospect but locating one of these deposits could bring you lots and lots of gold. More info on that here: Paleochannel Hunting Guide
Residual and Eluvial Placers are placer deposits that form near a hard rock source. They are formed by erosion as gold-bearing rock breaks free from its source. Gold can accumulate in the hillside in pockets. These deposits can be very rich but tend to be small in size. Pocket hunting can be lucrative for a small miner though.
Beach Placers form by concentrating placer gold due to the wave action of a beach instead of the flow of a river. A famous example of this is the deposit in Nome, Alaska which is featured in the TV reality show “Bering Sea Gold”.

Once you’re able to recognize places where gold is likely to accumulate you’ll need to test the gravels. There is one fundamental skill that is used at every stage of placer prospecting and that is gold panning. You’ll have to spend the time to become good at gold panning. There are numerous devices available that are marketed to make up for lack of gold panning skill. No tool is more important to a gold prospector than his trusty gold pan!

Gold panning, like all placer methods, is based on the density difference of gold vs water, gravel, and black sands. When suspended in water gold will sink to the bottom of the pan. There are two steps to gold panning, agitating the material and washing away the less dense sands. As you’re panning you’ll alternate between these two steps, agitate and wash. As you’re agitating the material you’re allowing the gold to sink to the bottom of the pan, then you want to keep the gold in the bottom while you wash away the lighter material. Eventually, you’ll be left with only gold and nothing else.

Just like any skill it takes time to master. The best way to learn is to start out with lead shot. Try different sizes of shotgun pellets or BBs and mix them with gravel to practice. Once you’re able to separate the shot from the gravel you’ll be ready to try it for real.

You don’t need a lot of tools to start out. Lots of people go on a buying spree when they get started in prospecting. Don’t do that. All those extra gimmicks aren’t going to help you find more gold. Especially things like metal detectors and panning aids.

In addition to a gold pan, you’ll want a ½” or ¼” screen and a snuffer bottle. That’s all you need. The screen helps remove the larger pebbles which makes panning easier and faster. A snuffer bottle is a small plastic bottle that helps you keep your gold. It functions like a turkey baster, you squeeze it and use the bottle to suck up gold out of your pan for safekeeping.

As you advance in your prospecting career you’ll find the need for additional tools. Gold pans are excellent for testing gravels and separating concentrates but sooner or later you’ll want to run larger samples and produce a bit of gold. To run larger samples you’ll need a device that can concentrate gold at a higher rate.

A sluice or highbanker is the next logical step. A sluice is a tray set at an angle with riffles that collect dense material (ie. gold). A highbanker is a portable machine with a sluice and a hopper that allows for concentrating larger amounts of material, usually between ¼ to 2 yards per hour. A high banker is the largest machine that you can run in BC without a permit, more on that below.

There are much larger wash plants available for larger-scale testing and full-scale mining.

When it comes to larger-scale mining you’ll need to learn about exploration, sampling, and mining on a larger scale. Each of those steps requires a lot of detailed knowledge, give us a call when you get to that stage and we’ll help you out.

Stake a Claim

Once you’ve made a discovery it’s time to stake a claim. There are a lot of things to consider when deciding which claim to stake. You’ll want to consider things like location, accessibility, price, type of deposit, and several other factors before you commit to a piece of ground. You’ll also need to consider the licensing and regulations.

In British Columbia, it is necessary to hold a Free Miner’s Certificate in order to hold a claim. This certificate provides certain rights such as access to mineral lands and to tenure ownership. The history of the FMC actually dates back to medieval Europe.

In order to obtain an FMC in BC it is necessary to visit a Front Counter office in person to verify your ID. The government website can guide you through the process.

You’ll have to decide if it’s beneficial for you to stake a claim yourself or to buy one from somebody else. The cost to stake a claim is quite low, in BC it costs about $100 for each 500m x 500m cell in staking fees. This is done with BC’s online staking system. In other jurisdictions such as the Yukon, physical claim posts are still used. There is a lot of debate about which system is better but that is beyond the scope of this article.

Buying a claim from someone else is much more expensive but if that person has already done some of the exploration work it could be worthwhile. Be extremely cautious of people advertising claims with good gold on them. Since the early days of the gold rushes in the 1800s speculation and deception have been part of this business. Mark Twain famously defined a gold mine as “A hole in the ground with a liar at the top”. Today is no exception.

If you are considering buying a claim from someone else do your due diligence first. That means doing your own testing on site. Test enough so that you’re confident in the gold grades being advertised. If you aren’t confident in your ability to do that then you’re not ready to buy a claim.

Location: The location of a claim is fundamental to whether it will be successful or not. First and most importantly it must have gold on it. After all, you can’t mine gold if it isn’t there. As mentioned above you should do significant research and test an area prior to staking it. Secondly, you need the claim to be in a location that you can get to on a regular basis. If it’s located far away from your home and you can only get there once a year how will you be able to work it?
Access: Aside from the gold grades you’ll need access to the property. You’ll have to decide what kind of access is necessary. If you want to be bringing in equipment you’ll need some kind of road access. Some newly discovered areas don’t have roads but you’ll need to decide how adventurous you want to get and how much development work you’re willing to do on your own. You’ll also want to determine the access to water and if you can get down to the creek or not. Is the claim in a canyon, or on top of a mountain?
Type of Deposit: as we discussed above there are different types of placer deposits. An area that you are considering claiming could have a creek, or it could be on a high bench with no water. It could be a beach placer or even high up on a mountain. All of these areas could host a viable gold deposit but you’ll have to decide if your skills and ambition are a match for the task at hand.
History: the mining history in the area is also important. You don’t want to buy a claim that’s already been mined out. It’s important to make sure that there’s still some gold left for you. There are scenarios where historical miners make mistakes or had poor prospecting techniques and left lots of gold behind. Sometimes that can be due to superstitions or insufficient funds. It’s also important to not get caught up in urban legends or miner’s tales about the area.
Other Land Owners: a mineral or placer claim gives you the rights to the hard rock or placer minerals within the boundaries of your claim. It does not give you ownership of the land. Someone else could own private property in the same location, other parties could have the forestry rights, traplines, or there could be things like a power line or pipeline right of ways, gravel pits or indigenous land. There are also provincial parks and other types of land ownership such as legacy claims and crown-granted claims to look out for. As a claim owner you have certain rights to access and develop your claim (even if it’s on private property in many cases) but the less conflict you have the better.

Ownership of a claim gives you certain privileges but it also comes with responsibilities. A claim will require upkeep in the form of assessment work or payments in lieu. You’ll also need permits for advanced work and mining which require a lengthy application process and first nations consultation in most cases. Spend the time to properly research and test a claim before you take the plunge, especially if you’re considering spending a lot of money on it.

Learn the Regulations

No matter what scale of gold prospecting you are going to engage in you’ll have to learn the rules and regulations. Now that’s easier said than done. In most jurisdictions, the rules are not readily available, especially in British Columbia. The major rules are usually somewhat easy to find but they are always ripe with exceptions and open to interpretation. Unfortunately, the mining regulations in BC are based on a patchwork of laws and there is no manual or anything that clearly summarizes the rules. Just like any law though ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it.

In BC, the rules regarding mining claims and land access are covered by the Mineral Tenure Act. You can access the regulations here: Mineral Tenure Act

The BC Ministry of Mines (or The Ministry of Energy, Mines, and Low Carbon Innovation if you want to use their full name) has put out a good summary of the rules for small-scale mining without a Mines Act Permit called Bulletin #38. You can access that document here: Permissible Activities without a Mines Act Permit

Other acts that regulate mining activities are the Mines Act, the Mining Right of Way Act and the Water Sustainability Act. The MTO website has links to the actual legislation behind those acts: BC Mining Legistlation

Small scale mining without heavy equipment is permitted in BC under the conditions in Bulletin #38. Larger work programs require permits from the Ministry of Mines and are subject to additional regulations.

There is no guidebook to the BC mining laws. It would be nice if the government could put together a book as they have for studying for your driver’s license. Unfortunately no such document exists. The Atlin Placer Miner’s Association put together a document called the Atlin Placer Mining Best Management Practices Guidebook, which was an attempt to create a guidebook.

This article is a brief overview of how to get started in placer mining. This is by no means a comprehensive guide. Each of the points mentioned in the article should be followed up on. Hopefully we answered some of your questions though.

There’s always more to learn and a good prospector will always be learning. Even experts in the field welcome the opportunity to learn a little bit more. The best advice we can give is to be patient, pay attention and hopefully you can find an experienced prospector to work with. The best way to learn is to work with someone who already has the knowledge.

Happy hunting!

How to Lose Your Shirt in Placer Mining

PlacerGold Equipment, Lists, Science November 12, 2021communication, exploration, gold, gold mining, gold mining equipment, gold panning, gold rush, lost mine, mining, mining partner, new placer mine, paleo-placer, paleochannel, placer, placer claim, yukon 9 Comments

What makes placer mining unique is that you have control over your own destiny. The barriers to entry are low and a small group of people can have the opportunity to develop a mine and produce gold on their own terms. You don’t need a corporation and millions of dollars to succeed in placer mining. That freedom is a double-edged sword though. The majority of placer miners bite off more than they can chew and fail miserably.

This article lists some sure-fire methods to lose your shirt in placer mining that apply to large-scale mines and small hand operations alike. By knowing the mistakes that others have made you can avoid making the same mistakes yourself.

Too much equipment, Too soon

There is a lot of equipment available to placer miners these days. A lot of rookie miners will buy way too much equipment before they even get started. That’s a great way to blow your budget without even finding any gold.

The fitness industry relies on this same principle. It doesn’t take much effort to go out and buy a brand new stationary bike but just owning that machine isn’t going to give you abs of steel. Getting in shape takes hard work and dedication. Placer gold exploration works the same way. Some miners seem to think that buying a bigger wash plant, a bigger excavator, or even the latest and greatest highbanker will somehow make gold appear. It’s easy to buy equipment, finding gold is hard.

If you want to blow your whole mining venture in the first season then buy too big of equipment before you’ve even explored your claim. You’ll be part of the illustrious club of would-be miners who failed before they even got started.

We were contacted recently by a miner who wanted to hire West Coast Placer to do some bedrock mapping. The miner had recently purchased a $250,000 wash plant. We asked them where they were mining and they responded, “We’re hoping that you can help us figure that out.” They didn’t even have a claim yet. That is not a recipe for success.

Other miners have spent their money on excavators, loaders, and high-end camp setups but then had nothing left to buy a drill. At different stages of placer exploration you’ll need different equipment. Having a solid plan will help you figure out what is required at each stage.

If you want to be successful explore the claim first and get the gear that you need to work in that specific situation. You don’t need a washplant until you’ve actually mapped out a mineable gold deposit and have a mining plan figured out. Start out with basic tools and expand as needed. During exploration the trick is to gather as much information as possible while spending the least amount of money.

Get hooked on a glory hole

We can all look at other miners who spent three years digging in the same spot totally convinced that it’s going to make them rich. We shake our heads and think of how stupid they are. However, a lot of miners fall into this trap.

What is it about glory holes that suck in the imagination of placer miners? It’s sort of like gold fever. Miner’s get hooked on the belief that one specific spot holds all the gold and that if they can just dig it up they’ll be rich.

This sickness can affect rookies and even some experienced miners. Sometimes it’s driven by a story from the past, or a misinterpretation of a geological feature. Getting hooked on a glory hole is similar to being in a romantic relationship that is totally toxic. All your friends know but you don’t realize it yourself until after the breakup.

This situation can be easily avoided by proper sampling and testing. A whole season’s worth of excavating in the wrong spot ( or multiple seasons for some people) can be avoided with one drill hole. If you are convinced that there is a whole bunch of gold in one spot, and you haven’t tested to confirm, then you have fallen victim to the glory hole trap.

Drink your own Kool-aid

Every placer miner has their reasons for digging and exploring in the spots that they do. Sometimes that’s based on good test results but often it’s based on nothing more than imagination.

Many miners have developed a form of fairy tale in explaining the gold deposits on their claim. The geological, fluvial, and glacial environments that create placer pay streaks are extremely complex. There are entire fields of science that dedicate themselves to understanding these processes. Even an expert geomorphologist can’t walk up to a placer claim and tell you what material has been deposited over the last 4 glacial periods, where the ancient channels are located and what ancient streams used to flow over the mountain range. If you think you know those answers then you are heading down a dangerous path.

I’ve heard a lot of stories from placer miners who seem to know the exact play-by-play movements of glaciers during the last ice age and therefore know exactly where their gold has been accumulated. Obviously, they don’t have reliable knowledge of the geological history of their claim but they have convinced themselves that they do.

Others are convinced that there is a gold source up the mountain and it has puked out placer gold in a specific location that they’re about to mine. All without sampling and mapping out deposits.

It takes massive amounts of time and money to reliably recreate glacial movements. They are extremely complex and hard to trace. There are well-funded research projects that study these kinds of things with teams of experts and even they are not 100% certain.

If you think that you have those answers and haven’t hired expert geomorphologists, drilling companies, and performed large-scale studies to find out, then you’re just fooling yourself.

Truthfully in placer mining, you don’t need to know how the gold got there. All you have to do is test and sample the ground to find out where the gold is right now. Finding mineable placer deposits is hard and there are no shortcuts. There are techniques that work really well but believing in your own fairy tales isn’t going to make the gold appear. It’s much better to assume that you know nothing and explore in a systematic way.

Put too much emphasis on stories from the past

Every creek has a success story from the past about an old-timer who pulled out some rich gold from an ambiguous location nearby. They usually go something like this:

“In the 1920’s Johnny Miner pulled out a 30-ounce nugget from somewhere up on that hill over there.”

Other stories involve drifts built by Chinese miners in the 1890s or a rich mine that was wiped out by a wildfire never to be found again. They have a lot in common with urban legends with the right mix of potential gain and just enough details to keep you interested.

There are lots of stories like this and a lot of them are true. Being a placer miner in the 21st century involves being a little bit of a historian as well as an explorer. After all, there are pretty much zero creeks in the world that haven’t had a pan dipped in them at least once before.

There are several issues with historical information that sometimes slip through our radar. We all know that clickbait stories on the internet are probably exaggerated to capture our attention. That phenomenon is not a new invention. Speculation and hype have always been part of mining. It was probably even worse during the gold rush periods of the late 1800s. Testing techniques are not standardized either. Even if a story is meant to be factual the miner might not have had a reliable technique to test his grades. You could fall victim to second-hand confirmation bias from 100 years ago and not even know it.

Whether these stories are true or not you still need to do your own testing. Reliable historical information can be an excellent starting point but it must be taken with a grain of salt. If you have truly uncovered some historical information that provides evidence for a forgotten placer deposit then start testing that area. Remain objective and if the test results don’t show what you’re expecting then move on.

Far too many miners have spent their time and budget blindly searching for a rich paystreak that was mentioned decades ago. I personally know miners who have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars searching based on three sentences of historical information.

Keep an open mind and let the evidence guide you. It’s important to know when enough is enough.

Insufficient sampling

We’ve all heard the old adage that in real estate that the three most important things are location, location, location. In the world of placer mining, the three most important words are sampling, sampling, sampling.

This is the single most important aspect of placer mining and exploration. Miners of all sizes have lost money and often their entire budget due to poor sampling. There are lots of reasons why miners forgo proper sampling. It costs money, it takes time away from mining, maybe they don’t know how to sample properly in the first place.

Sampling will make or break your placer operation. It must be done over a broad area and in a way that won’t fool the person doing it. The quality of sampling is just as important as the quantity.

For example, it is critically important to measure the volume of each sample accurately otherwise the grade calculations will be totally wrong. Say you sampled half an excavator bucket and found 3 grams of gold. Is that 3 grams per yard? Or half of that? It makes a big difference. Let’s say you’re using 5-gallon pails. Were they all full when you ran the sample? Half-full? Three quarters? Your grade calculations will change dramatically based on the volume.

Bigger samples are always better but there is a trade-off between lots of small samples and only a handful of big ones. Each situation and budget will call for variations in the sampling plan. You want to have enough locations tested to be confident that you understand the size and distribution of your pay streak while getting reliable results in each sample.

It’s important to test areas outside of the location where you think the best gold is. That means testing every depth interval from surface to bedrock as well as testing ground whether you think it’s a location that you can mine or not. Many miners have missed out on unbelievable pay because they only tested areas that they thought were favorable for mining. Here’s a tip, every spot is favorable for mining if the gold grades are high enough.

Placer exploration is a little bit like the board game Battleship, where you have to shoot missiles on a blind grid to sink your opponent’s ships. You start out knowing nothing but over time you gain evidence of where things are located, in this case gold instead of toy battleships. The same systematic approach will lead you to win Battleship as it will to mine a profitable placer deposit.

If you think you’ve done enough sampling, you haven’t. If you start washing gravels before you have sampled a broad area with verifiable tests you are guaranteed to lose your shirt.

Before you start mining make sure that you know the depth, location, and the grades of your pay gravels. There are a lot of opinions on what the proper way to sample is. The important thing is to be thorough and be consistent.

Get a Partner

Many great placer mining operations have met their demise due to disagreements between partners. It always sounds like a good idea at the time but partnerships fail for a variety of reasons. Most often financial disagreements.

Howard from the great mining classic, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre said it best,

“Ah, as long as there’s no find, the noble brotherhood will last but when the piles of gold begin to grow… that’s when the trouble starts.”

Gold does funny things to some people. Even people that you wouldn’t expect. There’s something about the yellow metal that affects us deep inside. It’s not just the financial value either. Silver, copper, uranium, platinum, and numerous other metals are mined in similar ways but people don’t get as emotionally attached to any of those things. The only other mineral that affects people in a similar way is diamonds.

Gold fever has existed as long as people have been mining. The primary reason that the Spanish explorers stumbled upon North America was the search for gold. Christopher Columbus wasn’t looking for America, his sole purpose was to find Cipangu, the island of “endless gold.” The Spanish explorers famously ravished and betrayed civilizations in the Americas to steal their gold. The betrayal met its climax in 1532 when Francisco Pizarro famously betrayed the Inca ruler Atahualpa.

Partnerships fail for many reasons but greed is often the primary factor. Sometimes personal finances fall apart, a partner gets divorced, falls behind on truck payments, anything can happen. A lot of placer mines that have done everything right and developed great gold deposits have fallen apart due to disagreements between partners.

Gold mining partnerships always start out with the best intentions but humans are complex and things can change. If you’re considering a partnership make sure the person or people that you’re going to join forces with are going to stick it out for the long haul. Make sure you have a solid contract in place that has been verified by a lawyer or notary.

They say a business partnership is like a marriage. You want to be careful who you’re going to bed with.

Set Unrealistic Deadlines

One thing that has ruined the dreams of many would be gold miners is rushing the exploration process. Exploration, planning and logistics take time. Everyone is eager to start mining but it takes preparation to get to that point. A lot of the points in this article are often the result of setting unrealitic deadlines.

A lot of miners start buying wash plants or heavy equipment before they are ready to use that equipment. As a result they get trigger happy and skip important steps in the exploration process. I know a miner who recently told me that they have to start mining next season no matter what. This person quit his job and has started to buy mining equipment. At the time that we were discussing this he had not found a viable gold deposit yet. If he followed through with that plan he’d have definitely lost his shirt.

A lot of miners raise money by having people invest in their operations and those investors inevitably want a quick return on their money. Many placer operations have failed due to pressure from investors to fast track the mining process. This is one reason why partners or investors can kill your placer operation. If everyone onboard has realistic expectations about the time frames required for exploration in advance the project has a lot higher chance of succeeding. It’s important to be honest about how much time it’s going to take to explore for and find a gold deposit.

At West Coast Placer we provide exploration services to placer miners of all sizes. We’ve seen a lot of successful operations and have helped miners develop their properties into profitable mines. We’ve also seen a lot of ventures fail miserably. There are some practices that are guaranteed to lead to failure and yet rookie and experienced miners alike make these mistakes over and over again. Hopefully these tips will help you stay successful in placer mining and keep you from losing your shirt.

Modern Laws for Claimjumping

PlacerGold History March 29, 2020claimjumper, gold, gold mining, gold rush, Klondike, legal, mining, mining laws, placer, placer claim, yukon 13 Comments

Throughout mining history, there are stories of scoundrels, cheats, bandits, and liars. The gold rush towns had their share of bad actors but above everything else, there is one title that nobody wanted to have, “the claimjumper”.

In the world of mining, claimjumpers are the lowest of the low. During the gold rushes of North America miners traveled into areas where laws didn’t exist yet. In the California Gold Rush of 1849, the territory had no government, police or administration of any kind. Despite the lawlessness and disorder of the early gold rushes one thing was held sacred above everything else, the right of the miner to locate a mining claim and to hold it against all comers.

What does claimjumping mean? There are two forms of claimjumping but they both amount to the same thing:

Producing minerals from a claim that belongs to someone else
Attempting to seize the land on which another party has already made claim

Historically, stealing or mining ore from someone else’s mine was referred to as highgrading. While claim jumping referred to the actual seizure or taking over of someone else’s claim. Today the two terms are intertwined.

Claimjumping is illegal today just as it was in the mid-1800s and even before that. You can’t shoot a claimjumper anymore but the modern laws are quite powerful nonetheless. In British Columbia and throughout Canada you can face huge fines, jail time and being banned from the right to hold claims. As well as having to forfeit any ill-gotten minerals or profit. If, in the process of claimjumping, you break any environmental regulations or mining laws you will be on the hook for those penalties too. On top of that your equipment and even your vehicle can be forfeited if proven to be involved in the crime.

There are honest and dishonest forms of claimjumping in which the law does make a slight distinction. Honest being that you were unaware that you were engaging in claimjumping. The difference only applies in terms of repayment for the ore that was extracted, the fines and other penalties still apply whether you are knowingly claimjumping or not.

It’s difficult to find the information on Canadian claimjumping laws. Part of that comes from the fact that there isn’t an accepted term for the crime. In legal terminology claimjumping has been referred to by many titles including:

Mineral Trespass
Wrongful Abstraction of Ore by Trespass Workings
Wrongful Working of Minerals
Highgrading
Wrongful Interference with Personal Property
Wrongful Conversion
Trespass and Conversion
Willful Trespass

My favorite is “Wrongful Abstraction of Ore by Trespass Workings”, it has a certain ring to it. There are slight differences to some of those terms but they all point towards the same thing. Trespass and benefiting from something that doesn’t belong to you. Trespass is actually a complicated part of the legal system. There are different kinds of trespass. We are all familiar with what it means to trespass on private property but a mining claim isn’t necessarily private property. Perhaps we should clarify what a mining claim really is.

Trespass and Conversion

In Canada, and specifically in BC, mineral rights are held by the crown. The actual “Crown” in Canada is a story in itself but basically means that the mineral rights are owned by the people of British Columbia. When you are the holder of a mineral or placer claim, you lease the rights to those minerals for the duration of your tenure. From the issue date to the “good to date” of your claim the minerals in that plot of land belong to you and nobody else. Surface rights are a totally different story. Check out our post on Free Miners for more info on that.

Trespassing is defined as “the wrongful interference with one’s possessory rights in real property.” When it comes to claimjumping you are definitely interfering with the claimholder’s rights when you are extracting ore that belongs to them. The trespass itself is not listed as a crime under the Canadian criminal code, but it does allow the claimholder to sue the claimjumper for damages.

In Canadian law there are two ways to deal with the proceeds of trespass and conversion. The mild rule, and severe rule.

Under the mild rule, the guilty party has to pay the claim owner for the value of ore that was extracted. The costs of mining the ore, bringing it to market, etc are not included. This rule applies when the trespass (claimjumping) was not intentional.

The severe rule forces the guilty party to pay the realized value of stolen ore including the cost of mining.

Either way you have to pay back the claim owner for whatever gold you mined on his claim, the severe rule means that you have to pay the full value not accounting for the costs that you incurred in the process. The mild rule is quite lenient that way but you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you commited the crime unintentionally.

There are plenty of examples of supreme court rulings where the trespasser had to pay back the claim owner for their ill-gotten gains. Here is an example from 1907 in the Yukon in which one miner produced ore an another miner’s claim and mixed the ore with his own.

Here’s some info on a more recent case in the Yukon. I actually worked with one of the miners in this story in Klondike back in 2010, I won’t say which one though.

Claimjumping supreme court cases are common in Alberta although the claimjumping takes a slightly different form. These cases are regarding mineral rights for oil instead of precious metals but the concepts are the same. In Alberta, mineral rights are divided by different sedimentary layers that contain petroleum. So different companies can own the mineral rights in the same location but at different depths. Due to the complexities of this system, companies drill into other company’s leases all the time.

The consequences of mineral trespass vary, but the Alberta Energy Regulator introduced a penalty of $50,000 per occurrence. In addition to the penalty, compensation is owed for the value of any minerals obtained during trespass. Alberta mineral trespass is treated the same in a legal sense as gold claims in BC just with a much higher frequency of settlements.

Miner’s Meetings

During the gold rushes you couldn’t file a complaint to any governing body. Miners took justice into their own hands and had a form of democracy called Miner’s Meetings. The meetings were notorious for their swift justice but they were considered fair. In order to participate in a miner’s meeting you had to be the holder of an active claim.

A journalist named Baryard Taylor gave this account of the situation in the California Gold Fields in 1849:

In the absence of all law or available protection, the people met and adopted rules for their mutual security rules adapted to their situation, where they neither had guards nor prisons, and where the slightest license given to crime or trespass of any kind must inevitably have led to terrible disorders. Small thefts were punished by banishment from the placers, while for those of large amount or for more serious crimes, there was the single alternative of hanging.

As gold rushes progressed further North the miners took their knowledge and customs with them. During the Fraser River gold rush, the miners brought with them knowledge of mining placer gold with long toms, rocker boxes and hydraulic mining as well as their own customary law that had spontaneously developed in the California Goldfields.
During the Fraser River gold rush each bar had it’s own set of rules which were democratically chosen by the miners.

The Daily Alta California published the laws passed by a miners’ meeting held on May 12th, 1858 on Hill’s Bar, Fraser River, which included:

Claim sizes were defined as twenty-five feet along the river bank’s high water line for each person.
Miners were restricted to to one claim by preemption and one by purchase.
Claims were “not considered workable” between May 20th and August 20th.
During the non-workable period the work requirement was removed.
During the workable times claims must be “represented”, or worked, within three days or they were otherwise free to be jumped.
There was a regulation declaring that any thieves or claimjumpers would be expelled from Hills Bar and lose their claims.
And anybody “interfering with or molesting any Indian” would be punished as “the community shall see fit.”

Just up the river at Yale, the rules were slightly different:

There was a rule concerned with equality, limiting miners from holding more than one claim.
A one-day work requirement every five-days was established.
The office of recorder was created to keep track of claim registration.
Proven claimjumpers were to be banished from the placers and have their claims and gold forfeited.

All along the Fraser, mining communities drew on norms established in California to regulate society on the lower Fraser. This community didn’t legitimate itself based on an external authority. Instead, the miners assumed their own legitimacy and authority.

Miner’s meetings progressed into miner’s boards which were legislated under the Goldfields Act in 1859. The miner’s boards stayed in place until 1888.

More remote areas still used the principles of the miner’s meeting since police presence and regulations were often slow to follow the prospectors. Here’s an account of the legal landscape in the notorious Circle City which is situated just over the Alaska border from the Klondike by Arthur Walden in 1896, two years before the brunt of the Klondike Gold Rush:

Here was a town . . . which had no taxes, courthouse, or jail; no post-office, church, schools, hotels or dog pound; no rules, regulations, or written law; no sheriff, dentist, doctor, lawyer, or priest. Here there was no murder, stealing, or dishonesty, and right was right and wrong was wrong as each individual understood it. Here life, property, and honor were safe, justice was swift and sure, and punishments were made to fit the case.

Eventually communities grew, the North West Mounted Police set up outposts and federal and provincial laws began to take over. The days of frontier justice faded into the background but many of the principles that the miner’s meetings established made their way into legislation.

Current Laws

In the United States many individual states have clear laws regarding claimjumping, or as it is now referred to “mineral trespass”. They vary from state to state but almost all have similar rules on the proceeds of mineral trespass.

For example when a willful trespass occurs in Colorado, the trespasser is not entitled to set off the mining costs. In addition Colorado allows punitive damages for “Willful and Wanton” trespass claims. Punitive damages are a fancy word for additional fines to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct. That is uncommon in Canada.

US penal codes clearly list claimjumping as a crime which isn’t quite as easy to find in Canada. For example in Washington state Mineral Trespass (RCW 78.44.330) is considered a class C felony which carries a punishment of up to 5 years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines

In British Columbia, claimjumping falls under our Mineral Tenure Act. There are two sections of the law that deal with claimjuping:

9(2)A person must not hand pan on a valid mineral title unless the person receives permission from the recorded holder of the mineral title.

As well as

28(1)Subject to this Act, the recorded holder of a claim is entitled to those minerals or placer minerals, as the case may be, that are held by the government and that are situated vertically downward from and inside the boundaries of the claim.
(2)The interest of a recorded holder of a claim is a chattel interest.

Punishments are listed under section 63 of the Act, which states:

63 (1) A person commits an offence who does any of the following:

(a)wilfully and without lawful excuse pulls down, defaces, alters or removes a staking or legal post, a legal corner post or other survey monument;
(b)explores for, develops or produces minerals contrary to this Act or the regulations;
(c)knowingly makes a false statement or provides false information under this Act, or in a registration;
(d)offers for sale, or sells, a mineral title for a non-mining usage.

(3) A person who is convicted of an offence is liable to a fine of not more than $25,000 or to imprisonment for not more than 6 months, or to both.

The following activities are in violation of the Mineral Tenure Act and will result in criminal charges:

Panning on a mineral claim or placer claim without permission
Producing minerals or placer minerals from an active claim by any means, pan, sluice, shovel, dredge, or even your bare hands.
Removing rocks or minerals from a claim, either rockhounding or for any other purpose.

In addition to a potential fine of $25,000 or 6 months in prison, anyone who is proven to be claimjumping will lose their FMC and any claims for a period determined by the Gold Commissioner. That means that you can lose your free miner rights for life and no longer be able to own claims.

A person guilty of removing minerals from a claim is guilty of theft under the Criminal Code of Canada. Section 334 of the criminal code states that theft under $5000 carries a prison term not exceeding two years. For theft over $10,000, a prison term not exceeding ten years.

The Criminal Code of Canada has provisions for selling unrefined ore and specific laws regarding fraud of unrefined ore. If you are engaged in claimjumping it will be difficult and illegal to sell your ill-gotten gold. Precious metal assayers and buyers know these laws and will not accept placer gold unless you can prove the source.

394(1) (b) of the Criminal Code, makes it an offence for anyone to sell or purchase any rock, mineral or other substance that contains precious metals “unless he establishes that he is the owner or agent of the owner or is acting under lawful authority”.

The punishment for violation of that part of the Criminal Code states:

A person who contravenes subsection (1), (2) or (3) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than five years

In addition to the fines and penalties for those caught in the act of claim jumping you can also be on the hook for any illegal mining or environmental practices that you conduct. The mining and environmental laws are extensive but I’ll list a couple common ones here.

There are a lot more environmental inspectors than there are mining inspectors. They are likely the ones to catch you.
The most common fine is under Environmental Management Act Section 6(3) which states:

a person must not introduce or cause or allow to be introduced into the environment, waste produced by a prescribed activity or operation.

The standard fine for a small highbanker or river sluice is $575. You can see a list of some of the most recent fines here.

In his book Poachers, Polluters and Politics: A Fishery Officer’s Career, former fisheries officer Randy Nelson recounts on an incident where he caught some claimjumpers operating an illegal dredge in the Cariboo:

It was two days before Christmas, I had just caught up with a pile of paperwork and I decided to go for an afternoon patrol North of Quesnel. I crossed the Cottonwood River on Highway 97 North and climbed the big hill from the river valley. I glanced down a side road and saw a parked pickup truck with fresh footprints leading away from it down the snow-covered road.

It could have been any number of activities but I decided to check it out. I walked through the deep snow for over a mile, climbing along the upper banks of the Cottonwood River. The tracks finally turned off and headed downhill toward the river where I could hear a small motor running. Surely no one would be dredging for gold in this salmon stream in the winter?

They were so surprised I’m not sure their wet suits remained dry. They said, “Don’t you ever take time off? We never dreamt you’d be working this time of year or walk into this spot” I took it as a compliment and made sure to to pass that information on to the judge.

There wasn’t much the two of them could say. They were caught and one had a previous conviction. I seized everything at the site, including their dredge, gold dry suits, diving gear and tools. I loaded whatever I could carry and walked out with them out to their vehicle. I told them I would give them a ride home because I was seizing their truck too. Merry Christmas!

It would have taken several days to dismantle and pack the dredge out from the river and it was two days before Christmas so I hired a helicopter to sling the gear out from the river. The two miners were convicted in court and received fines of $3,000 each plus forfeiture of $4,000 worth of gear.

That was a bad day for those two claimjumpers. In situations where you are running bigger equipment that requires a Notice of Work permit (NOW) you can get into a whole bunch of fines and penalties. In a recent Mines Act decision a mine in the Cariboo was fined $28,000 for operating without a proper permit.

How can you avoid claimjumping?

Just like any other law in Canada your ignorance of the law does not exempt you from it. That means that if you are gold panning, mining, rockhounding, or producing mineral of any kind it’s up to you to understand the laws and claims in that area.

Before you go out gold panning make sure that you’re not on someone else’s claim. The best place to check is the BC MTO website (mtonline.gov.bc.ca). That is the website run but the Mineral Titles Branch of BC’s Ministry of Energy, Mines & Petroleum Resources. The MTO maps are a bit daunting to a newcomer but all the information is there.

Local mining laws can take a bit to understand at first but you can always email or phone the MTO with any questions.

Claims are rarely marked in the field since BC now has an online staking system. If you are out gold prospecting a GPS is just as important as your gold pan these days. Make sure your maps are up to date and you know how to use your GPS.

The best place to prospect is a panning reserve, your own claim, or a claim where you have permission from the owner. If you aren’t certain that you’re operating legally then don’t start digging.

In summary, these are the penalties for claimjumping in BC:

Repayment for full value of the ore that was stolen
$25,000 fine or 6 months in prison; Mineral Tenure Act
2 to 10 years in prison for theft, plus summary conviction; Criminal Code of Canada
Loss of FMC, potentially for life; Mineral Tenure Act
Up to 5 years in prison for selling ore without proving the source; Criminal Code of Canada
Fines for violation of mining and environmental laws
Possible confiscation of mining gear and your vehicle

Modern-day prospectors and miners work hard to explore their claims. It takes time and money to locate a claim, stake it and begin exploration work. There are hurdles to operate a mine legally. Most miners put a lot of effort into setting everything up properly so that they can mine and reap the benefits of their hard work. Claimjumpers try to cut corners and steal resources from the people that have done the hard work. There’s a reason that nobody wants the earn the title of “claimjumper”.

You can’t be banished from the land or hung you like they did during the gold rushes but you will have to repay all the gold you steal and face penalties for your crimes.

What does it mean to be a Free Miner?

PlacerGold History January 22, 2020exploration, free miner, gold, gold mining, gold rush, Klondike, lode gold, mining law, placer, placer claim 10 Comments

In British Columbia it is necessary to hold a Free Miner’s Certificate (or FMC for short) to buy and sell mining claims. Most miners, prospectors and industry professionals hold an FMC but do they know what it stands for? The concept of the Free Miner holds historical roots dating back to medieval Europe where being a free miner meant a certain status and freedom during a time when freedom was reserved for a select few.

Mining law in BC dates back to before British Columbia even existed. Few British Columbians actually know the history and genesis of this beautiful province. We talk about the fur traders and explorers like Simon Fraser, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, and David Thompson. To this day they are credited with “discovering” BC. Their names are on our streets, our rivers, and countless monuments around the province.

The early explorers definitely laid the groundwork for things to come but it wasn’t until word got out about a peculiar yellow metal that things really got rolling. Once word reached California about gold in the Fraser Canyon the rush was on. Modern-day BC consisted of a disputed territory called New Caledonia during the time of the gold rush.

The mining law in BC was modeled after regulations in other British colonies such as Australia and New Zealand. The underlying principles of our mining laws date back to medieval Europe with a history dating all the way to the Roman Empire.

Beginnings of the Free Miner

Work in mines during the time of the Greek and Roman empires was primarily conducted by slaves and prisoners. The Romans were producing gold and silver coins used as currency and required more precious metals than were being produced by traditional mines. During the reign of Emperor Charlemagne (768-814) the demand for gold and silver increased. The easily exploitable deposits were beginning to run out and there was a need for specialized mining skills and knowledge.

The Romans recognized the prospecting skills that miners possessed and began to allow slaves and peasants the freedom to explore. The Romans created the right to ownership based on discovery where if a man discovered a mineral deposit he could claim ownership. It was required that he pay a royalty or tribute to the emperor. Through this process, the miner ceased to be a serf and became a free man.

The incentive of freedom drove men to the farthest reaches of the Roman empire in search of metals and subsequently their own freedom. The adventurers taking part in the gold rushes of the 1800s in North America were driven by the same force, to find freedom and wealth on their own terms. The right to discovery has always been one of the core tenents of the free miner system.

Medieval Europe

During the middle ages land was owned outright by lords. Lords were subject to the king but they decided what would and wouldn’t happen on their land. The land was worked by peasants who owed a certain amount of workdays to the lord. In exchange, peasants could use small portions of land to produce their own food. Peasants were subject to the rules and taxes of the lord whose land they occupied.

A peasant couldn’t just take off and go looking around the mountains for gold. He would have to cross into different lands that are owned by different lords. Not to mention he was obligated to work for his lord and nobody else. It would be hard to prospect for minerals if you are tied to a very small plot of land.

Across much of central Europe, free miners were allowed to roam freely across land boundaries of land-holding lords and claim and work the deposits that they found. Since miners possessed the necessary skills and knowledge to exploit subsurface mineral deposits they were always welcomed by local authorities.

The free miner who made a discovery would be awarded a double-sized discovery claim along the vein. Later miners would only be allotted a single claim. In medieval Europe, a claim was called a “meer”. The head meer belonged to the miner who discovered the vein and all other meers were measured off of the head one. This practice continued well into the gold rushes of North America. A medieval free miner would typically not be required to pay for the registration of a claim, the royalty was enough.

Free miners in Germany and Austria developed a system of democracy that was independent of the king, government or lords of their time. In each mining district, the miners got together and elected a “Bergmeister”. The Bergmeister acted much like the gold commissioner in more modern times. He would determine the size of a claim that is to be awarded upon discovery, settle disputes about claims and so on. If the miners weren’t happy with the Bergmeister they would replace him with a more competent one. There is a ton of information of the systems and techniques of mining in the middle ages in an old book called “De Re Metallica”, published in 1556. The title is Latin for “On the Nature of Metals”.

The rules, laws, and practices of free mining communities were brought to England before the invasion by the Normans in 1066. There were several distinct free mining districts in medieval England. Districts were built around a specific commodity such as tin, coal, lead, zinc, and gold. A miner could explore anywhere in his claim regardless of land ownership. A claim was permanent, transferable and heritable as long as he kept up the required work obligations and paid the required royalty.

One of the first written laws regarding free miner’s rights was passed by the Bishop of Trent (modern-day Italy) in 1185. Under that law, the state held all mineral rights. Miners were permitted to freely enter the land to explore and mine provided that they shared the wealth with the state.

Miner’s Law

Free miners typically had immunity from the jurisdiction of the surface owner’s courts and had immunity to common-law. Different lords had different laws, different taxes and so on. Since free miners could roam freely, crossing different land boundaries they needed their own set of laws to provide some sense of continuity. Free mining districts had free miners’ courts which were controlled by the mining community. The concept of miner’s law lasted for centuries and even played a role in the gold rushes of Western North America from California to the Yukon.

Across medieval Europe, there were two main types of free miners. In more populated areas such as Southern England, the free miner system was community-based. Free mining communities existed where miners belonged to a self-governing community outside of the feudal hierarchy. In these areas, miners would work a claim in close proximity to other miners for decades and sometimes even passing on their claim to their descendants.

In the mountainous areas such as Northern England, Scotland, Germany, and Austria claims were spread out and miners would act more individually. In these areas, it was important for a free miner to be able to explore vast areas without being bound by individual landowners.

Both systems influenced the development of mining rights during the gold rush periods and many of the concepts still exist today. A free miner today in BC still has the right to roam freely in search of untapped mineral deposits, although there are a few limitations.

A free miner’s claim was not a standard amount of surface areas such as an acre, hectare or anything like that. The area that a miner was given depended on the strike and dip of their vein. A standard claim was 100 feet along the vein and a width of half the length. The strike of the claim was measured from the apex (outcrop) and could slope downward or lie flat with the land.

A steeper dipping vein would provide a smaller surface area for the claim. Free miners measured claims this way since a steeper dipping vein provided more ore per the same amount of area.

Since the amount of ore was the whole point, this system was considered fairer among free mining communities. This concept followed European settlers into the New World. During the homestead period of Western Canada and the United States settlers were given a predetermined amount of land while miners were given more freedom depending on the geology.

Property during medieval Europe was controlled by feudal lords. Many landowners had large swaths of land under their control and needed information about the geology and mineral deposits on their lands. Free miners were able to develop knowledge of geology due to their right to wander without concern for legal boundaries with large districts.

Medieval Lords commonly permitted free miners to operate on their lands in exchange for mining and geological information. Much as we do today with work and assessment reports as part of the upkeep of modern claims.

The California Gold Rush

At the onset of the California Gold Rush in 1848, the territory of California was only recently transferred to the United States from Mexico. Congress had not yet set up any kind of local government and there were no laws in place to govern the practice of mining. The 49ers were literally left to their own devices.

Each camp developed its own set of rules. Across all districts, miners asserted a universal right to free prospecting and mining on previously unclaimed lands. They developed systems for dealing with staking, noticing, acquiring and abandonment of claims. They dealt swiftly with proven claim jumpers. There were no royalties paid to any government but fees were collected to fund the local miner’s collective. They imposed a rule of one claim per man and work requirements. They also had a rule that allowed no more than one-week absence or your claim would be forfeited.

As discoveries slowed down in the California gold fields prospectors moved to other areas such as Australia, Colorado, Oregon, the Fraser River, Cariboo, and the Yukon. The principles developed in the California camp laws carried with them but had to be adjusted since the new districts actually had governments and laws while California didn’t enact actual public laws until two years after the first gold miners arrived.

The Australian Gold Rush

When the gold rush broke out in Australia in 1851 miners were shocked to find that New South Wales already had a government, property law, courts, military and police. That was a big difference from the wild west of the lawless California gold fields. There were some major conflicts as Australia tried to impose land restrictions, fees and various other rules on the miners.

In the end, a compromise was made and Australia’s Gold Fields Act was passed in 1854. That piece of legislation was based on the European principles of free mining and the lessons learned in the California gold fields. The act protected the miner’s right to free entry, the right to discovery, a personal right to the minerals in place, the right to occupy the claim and a right to participate in the making of local mining rules.

The Fraser River Gold Rush

With the influx of 30,000 prospectors, mostly American, the British population of 100-200 people was completely overwhelmed. Britain’s claim to present-day BC was under threat.

With the madness of the California gold rush fresh in people’s minds, the young government had to act quickly. HBC Governor James Douglas stationed a gunboat on the Fraser River to intercept gold rush miners to collect mining licenses and lay down the law. Great Britain acted quickly to make BC a crown colony on August 2, 1858.

It was the gold rush, not fur trading that really made BC part of the British Empire and subsequently part of Canada. Our mining laws were imported from Great Britain. Much of our current mining law in BC came from the passage of the Gold Fields Act in 1859.

The Gold Fields Act was strongly based on the legislation passed in Australia three years prior with the same name. The three principles of the free miner were paramount: the right to discovery, the right of entry to explore and the right to miner’s law. Under the new act, any person 16 years of age or over could obtain a Free Miner Certificate for the cost of one pound. An FMC gave its holder (the “free miner”) the right to freely enter onto, and stake a claim, on any un-staked area of Crown land – including private property and First Nations’ territories.

Governor Douglas’ law differed from the Australian law in that it allowed more freedom for miner’s boards. The rules for claim size and the ins and outs of staking a claim varied between mining districts. The government was small and the territory was vast.

The BC government didn’t have the means or the manpower to police all details of mining. They set the ground rules, issued a free miner’s license and let the miners boards police themselves. The large geographical areas and differences among deposits necessitated that claim size, rules and laws be different across the province. The local miner’s boards were able to rule by consensus.

Vigilante justice and decisions by majority vote prevailed in the camps. In time the North West Mounted Police (the predecessor to the RCMP) took on a larger role and established itself in most of the gold rush towns. By the time of the Klondike Gold Rush, there was a substantial NWMP presence in the gold mining areas.

Changes in Legislation

In 1891, provincial legislation formally recognized locations in which free miners could not enter onto and prospect for mineral claims. This included towns, private homes and Indian reserve lands. Today, areas that do not carry the automatic right of entry include land occupied by a building, the 75m of land directly surrounding a private residence (if that area is lawns, gardens etc.) and crop lands.

During the gold rush era (1850s to 1910s) most of the areas being prospected and mined took place on unoccupied frontier land. There were very few people around. On top of that, the techniques of placer mining consisted of pans and rocker boxes. In later years when miners employed more capital-intensive techniques like damming and hydraulicking, water licenses and land use started to become an issue.

In 1911 the Mineral Easements Act was passed. This new act established rules for right of way access to mineral and placer claims over private land. These rights of way included the right to construct the infrastructure required for mining and the right to use existing roads in aid of their mining activities

Under this act, only thirty days’ notice (including an advertisement published in the British Columbia Gazette and in a local newspaper for one month) was required for the establishment of a right of way that could last over an area of land for generations and permit the construction of a pipeline, tramway, and movement of heavy machinery.

Today, the ability for free miners to secure a right of way over private land, without the consent of the landowner, is preserved under section 2 of the Mining Right of Way Act – a legislative successor of the Mineral Easements Act of 1911.

Modern Laws on Free Miners in BC

Much of the free miner system remained the same until the 1990s. In 1995 the Mineral Tenure Amendment Act was passed, which added some limitations to mineral rights and activities on private lands. The act prohibited free miners from “interfering with any operation, activity or work on private land”. That was the first major restriction on the free entry system since 1891.

In 2002 amendments to the Mineral Tenure Act, removed the prohibition against free miners and recorded holders from interfering with any operation, activity or work on private land. The amendment provided that interfering with privately held land was permissible, so long as it was minimal and the private owner was compensated.

On January 12, 2005, the whole game changed. BC initiated the online staking system that we know today. Prospectors were no longer required to physically drive claim stakes into the ground, staking could now be done with the click of a mouse. This opened the door to a whole new level of speculation. The number of staked claims grew exponentially. Free miner rights remained intact.

In 2008 the Mineral Tenure Act and Mineral Tenure Act Regulation were amended once again to require that any person beginning mining activities on private land had to give notice at least eight days prior to beginning any mining activity. That law stands to this day. A free miner still has the right to occupy private property but must give a minimum of 8 days’ notice prior to occupation. It is important to note that notice does not require consent. A free miner must notify private landowners but does not need their permission to occupy private land for the purposes of mining.

The current law is specified in the Mineral Tenure Act of British Columbia.

The restrictions on land are broken into two categories. Free miners who hold a title and those who don’t.

As specified in section 11 of the act, the current restrictions on private land where a free miner doesn’t hold a claim include:

land occupied by a building
the curtilage of a dwelling house,
orchard land
land under cultivation
land lawfully occupied for mining purposes
protected heritage property, except as authorized by the local government
land in a park

Free miners without mineral tenure have rights to explore and search for minerals on most land. In BC a free miner can access any private property as long as proper notice is served and none of the above restrictions apply. That means that as long as you serve notice, you can explore freely on pretty much any private property in BC. The main exceptions are farms and land with a house on it.

If a free miner holds a claim overlapping private property there are less restrictions on access:

There is a mining prohibition in that area under the Environment and Land Use Act
The area is a designated park under the Local Government Act
The area is a designated park or ecological reserve under the Protected Areas of British Columbia Act
The area is an ecological reserve under the Ecological Reserve Act
The area is a protected heritage property.

When a free miner holds an active tenure the rules change slightly. Access to private land is much less restrictive. Not only does a free miner have access to the land, an active tenure give the right to use the land for all operations related to the exploration and development or production of minerals or placer minerals.

Section 14 of the Mineral Tenure Act which states:

Subject to this Act, a recorded holder may use, enter and occupy the surface of a claim or lease for the exploration and development or production of minerals or placer minerals, including the treatment of ore and concentrates, and all operations related to the exploration and development or production of minerals or placer minerals and the business of mining.

The concept of the “Free Miner” has deep historical roots and much of the free entry system and principles of the free miner are still present in BC laws and practices. The three core tenents of the free miner The right to discovery, Freedom to roam and self-government are built into our current laws. The miner’s meetings and self-government are no longer necessary as we now have strong governments with actual mining laws in place.

The free entry system is often misunderstood by people who aren’t familiar with the intent and history of the system. Private landowners are often surprised to learn that they have to allow miners onto their property. As a result, the free entry system is under threat by people outside of the mining community. Ontario, Quebec and the Northwest Territories have abandoned free miner’s rights due to public pressure.

The same principles that created free entry in Roman and medieval Europe are true today. In order to explore for minerals, it is necessary to have access to the land. If we lose the free entry rights then it will become harder and harder to discover and produce the minerals that our society needs.

When you hold a Free Miner’s Certificate you belong to a long history of free miners. It’s not just a piece of paper. The FMC represents freedom in the true sense of the word. A free miner means belonging to a community that built its own rules and paved the way for modern society. We might have modern tools, advanced technology, and modern government but a discovery today is no different than a discovery in medieval Bavaria. All miners strive for independence and to feed their sense of adventure.

What is the true value of gold?

PlacerGold Science April 3, 2017aerial imagrey, exploration, geophysics, gold, gold mining, gold rush, gold value, Klondike, lode gold, placer 0 Comment

There’s something about gold. It possesses us, sometimes entire nations to accumulate more and more of it. Humans have had a strong affinity for gold since the times of the ancient Egyptians and the Aztecs. Gold has been used as currency for thousands of years. Wars have been fought for it, entire civilizations slaughtered for their gold. Pindar, the ancient Greek poet, described gold as “a child of Zeus, neither moth or rust devoureth it, but the mind of man is devoured by this supreme possession.”

It’s hard to describe the feeling of finding your first gold nugget in an old stream bed. It sits there in your pan shimmering, the way that only gold can. You immediately recognize it’s power, it is intoxicating. This is what drives prospectors past and present to take great risks in the search for gold. There’s more than just the value of gold that attracts us to it. The word “placer” itself comes from the Spanish word meaning “pleasure”. For some it is an addiction, for others it symbolizes wealth. You’ll be hard pressed to find a member of the human species who wouldn’t be interested in some gold.

Gold has several properties that make it desirable. Most importantly it does not rust or tarnish. Gold artwork discovered in the tombs of Egypt looks just as lustrous today as it did 5000 years ago. Why is that? Gold belongs to a group of metals called the “Noble Metals”. They’re called noble because like nobility in old time monarchies they don’t associate with others. It’s fancy way of saying that the metals don’t readily react. Conversely iron will readily react with oxygen to form iron oxide (aka rust). Gold and other noble metals, such as platinum, possess a very strong atomic structure that requires a lot of energy to disrupt.

The ability to maintain over time is common of all valuable substances. A diamond for example produces a characteristic glow when cut and faceted properly but what good would it be if it disintegrated a month later? Diamonds are extremely hard and have a rock solid crystal structure. Other valuable gemstones all share similar properties, emeralds, rubies, sapphires and garnets all sit at the high end of the hardness scale. While gold isn’t hard in a geological sense it maintains it’s shape and luster indefinitely.

Gold is also very malleable. Meaning that it can be hammered or pressed into various shapes without cracking or losing its consistency. You could stretch an ounce of gold into a wire 80km long or produce a sheet of gold leaf 80 meters by 80 meters wide. Gold is also an excellent conductor. Not quite as good as copper but a better conductor than nickel, brass, iron, tin, and aluminium. Gold conductive wire is used in many critical electronics applications such as computer motherboards, smart phones and satellites.

What really makes gold valuable though is it’s scarcity at the earth’s surface. Approximately 165,000 metric tons of gold have been produced in the entirety of human history. While that may sound like a lot the amount of gold produced by mining is extremely small in comparison to other metals. For example the Carajás Mine in Brazil produces an average of 300 million metric tons of iron per year and has a deposit estimated at 7.2 billion metric tons. And that’s just one mine. All the gold ever produced would fit inside one Olympic sized swimming pool.

It is often stated that you can’t eat gold. While that’s not entirely true, (see gold covered pizza) an all gold diet wouldn’t provide much nutrition, and you’d probably have some digestive issues. The yellow metal doesn’t appeal to our basic needs for survival but neither does money or a smartphone. That doesn’t make any of these things less valuable.

We typically think of value in dollar terms. When evaluating an investment such as stocks or real estate it’s hard to think of anything else. Dollars are not constant though, they are subject to manipulation and inflation. For at least 6000 years gold has been used as currency and unlike modern currency is not subject to inflation. Modern currencies are what is called “Fiat Currency”. There is no standard on what a modern currency note can be exchanged for. Their value relies solely on people’s faith in it. Or more correctly their faith in the government. Inflation rates can severely affect the spending power of a dollar. There are countless examples, the most striking is the inflation of the German Reichsmark which rose from 4.2 marks to USD in 1914 to a peak of around 4.2 trillion marks to the US dollar by November 1923. At that time a wheelbarrow full of German marks wouldn’t even buy a newspaper.

Historically world currencies were backed by the gold standard which meant that by law any amount of paper money could be exchanged for a specified amount of gold. In the 1920s each US dollar was backed by 1.5 grams of gold. The dropping of the gold standard in Germany during WWI allowed for the hyperinflation that followed. The United States dropped the standard during the great depression to avoid the federal gold supply from being completely depleted. Canada followed suit in 1933. There’s much debate on the merits of dropping the gold standard. What resulted though is the ability for the government to completely control the currency without requiring tangible assets (ie. gold) to back it up.

So if the dollar is backed by nothing and can be manipulated at will how do you gauge the value of gold. Or anything for that matter. True value depends on what people are willing to trade for your goods. Money makes it easy to barter and trade goods since it’s ubiquitous and there is an agreed upon value at any given time. For example if you want to sell your car on craigslist you’ll have an idea of how many dollars you want for it. Lets say you have a used Honda Civic. You could sell that easily for $4000 CAD. That same Honda Civic could be traded for a 1 carat diamond engagement ring. 50 years from now a used car might sell for $25,000 dollars due to inflation but the exchange rate of car to diamond ring would remain the same.

The old adage that an ounce of gold will buy you a nice suit still rings true today. In the gold rush era (1848-1900) an ounce of gold would trade for about $20 USD, and would also buy a nice suit. A typical suit today would cost you about $450 USD. So it would seem that today’s gold would buy you 3.5 nice suits. You have to consider that in the 1800s nice clothing was not mass produced. To compare accurately you’d have to look at a tailored suit. A mid range tailored suit made in the United States costs between $1650 and $1800 today. At present gold is trading at about $1250 USD so the suit adage falls just above the quoted dollar value of gold.

What really gives gold it’s value is the cost of exploration and production. Being very rare it takes a lot of effort to find gold. Once it’s found it is expensive to produce as well. For example Barrick’s Cortez mine in Nevada has an average grade of 2.11 grams per ton. That means that for every ton of ore processed they average 2.11 grams of gold. Barrick’s published production cost at the Cortez mine is about $900/oz. It really is remarkable that they can move and process the 15 tons of rock required to obtain an ounce of gold for $900.

The cost of producing an ounce of gold varies for each mine. In a placer operation it is a constant cat and mouse game to keep costs low enough to make production economical. When gold commodity prices fall below production costs mines shut down and less and less gold is produced. The production cost, driven by scarcity is the single most important factor that drives the price of gold.

Gold exploration is also very expensive. In the times of the North American gold rush placer and hard rock gold was discovered all over the Western part of the continent. From the 1840s to 1900 new gold districts were popping up every year as discoveries were made. Trending almost in sequence Northward from California to the Yukon as explorers made their way through the wilderness. In more modern times most of the easily reachable areas have have been at least partially explored. Exploration today mostly takes place in more and more remote areas, such as the Canadian Arctic or other places with a small human footprint.

To properly explore a claim in these areas requires a camp. helicopters and all kinds of equipment. A typical small exploration program in the Northwest Territories can cost well over $1,000,000 per season with slim chances of success. While advancements in exploration technology such as geophysics and aerial imagery can provide information that wasn’t available to previous explorers there is no silver bullet.

The costs of thousands of exploration ventures that didn’t amount to a mine are factored into the price of gold as well. For the estimated 100,000 explorers that took part in the Yukon gold rush only a select few managed to recoup their costs. Some made made great discoveries but many more spent their life savings on an adventure but returned with no gold.

Gold’s value is based on it’s unique properties, people’s desire for the very special metal and the work required to find and produce it. The value has nothing to do with the the dollar value attached to it. For every ounce of gold produced tons of rock had to be excavated, the deposit had to be discovered and mapped, and the ore milled and smelted to extract the gold. As you gaze upon your gold ring and admire it’s beauty think about the story that it could tell you.

Placer Exploration in the Yukon

PlacerGold Trip Reports June 8, 2016drill, gold, gold mining, gold mining equipment, gold pan, gold panning, gold rush, Klondike, Nodwell, northern lights, placer, yukon 9 Comments

In the spring 2016 I was hired to help on a large scale placer exploration program in the Yukon. The property is located in a part of the Yukon where very little placer activity has taken place. We had a small team of three guys and a lot of equipment.

The Yukon, like BC and Alaska, was explored and settled by prospectors in the late 1800s. The Klondike gold rush of 1896-1899 was the largest and most storied gold rush in history. It is estimated that over 100,000 gold seekers migrated to the Arctic territory from places like San Fransico and Seattle. The Yukon’s economy is still driven by mining and the local culture is completely saturated with gold rush era influences. A great example is Yukon Gold, the flagship beer of the Yukon Brewing Company, has part the the famous poem “The Cremation of Sam Mcgee” on the label.

The Robert Service poem is part of Canadian heritage and is part of the school curriculum across the country. After several trips prospecting in the Yukon it takes on different meaning than a quirky poem that you have to read out loud in grade three.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

On a Monday night in early April at 9PM I received a phone call. “Your flight leaves Vancouver in the morning for Whitehorse. We’ll fill you in on the way.” Typical for this kind of job. I had been expecting the call for a few weeks but it still caught me a little off guard.

On arrival to Whitehorse I had been advised that one of our crew would meet me there. I had never met this guy before but I knew he was an old placer miner. The Whitehorse airport is small and we were the only flight. There were several people waiting for passengers so I had to guess. I noticed a guy wearing rubber boots and looked like a placer miner to me. I introduced myself and luckily he was the right guy.

We spent a couple hours rounding up additional gear before catching the charter to the camp. I was crammed in a Cessna 206 with the pilot and a bunch of gear. We had all the 5 gallon pails we could buy at the Whitehorse Home Hardware, drill bits, my gear, a 45 gallon drum of diesel, and a bunch of other stuff.

Soon after leaving Whitehorse we flew over Lake Lebarge which is the location where Sam Magee was famously cremated.

The pilot warned me that the runway was a little rough. We took a couple passes and lined up to land. It was rough all right, made of gravel and ice, we bounced so hard that we almost took off again. My two crew members were waiting to greet me at the plane. They were excited to meet me, especially since I brought a 24 pack of Kokanee. The beer didn’t last the night.

The two guys that I was working with had already been there for several weeks. It’s a rustic camp and there was no water available for showers or anything. I thought my team mates smelled pretty bad when I arrived but after a few days we all smelled the same. A few weeks later temperatures were high enough to rig up a pump system and a shower. This is not the first rustic camp that I’ve been to where we have satellite internet and no showers. These are interesting times to be an explorer.

The camp consists of three canvas tents, a seacan and an outhouse. The tents have “hippy killer” stoves that burn wood. They work well most of the time but you have to chop wood every time you want heat. Wood floors had been constructed which is certainly a luxury over dirt floors. Our kitchen is in the same tent as the office. There’s a propane stove/oven and plenty of food. We used paper plates so we wouldn’t have to wash them, they worked great for starting the stoves when we were done with them.

The main goal of this program was to carry out a sampling over the property. The drilling and sampling will allow us to find and evaluate economic placer deposits. Our primary tool was a Nodwell mounted drill with a 12″ auger. Some areas were sampled by excavator where the ground was not suitable to drill. Material was collected with the drill and excavator and processed on site with a small wash plant. In addition to gold values we developed an understanding of bedrock depth, characteristics and the distribution of placer gold.

Most of the gear was brought in on the winter trail. The trail is about 100km from the closest dirt road and requires the ground to be frozen and snow covered. Our two Nodwells, Toyota track truck, quads, fuel and everything was brought in over the trail. With a light load it can be travelled by snowmobile in about 4 hours each way. With the heavy equipment it takes 3-4 days. There are impromptu camps along the way but nothing with heat and very little shelter. The guys were prepared of course.

Nodwells are pretty cool machines. They were invented in the 1950s to service the oilfields of Northern Alberta and the Arctic. These beastly machines have super wide tracks to spread their weight on soft terrain. They have a unique drive system that uses rubber tires on the track. Operating one is similar to driving a tank. You pull levers to brake the track on either side. We had two of them, a big Nodwell for the drill and a smaller one for a support vehicle. The Nodwells have a lot of character, check out the yellow plywood interior and gun rack. The small one is named “Picasso”. The photos will expand when clicked.

We located and mapped several trenches that were used for ground sluicing dating back to the 1898 Yukon gold rush. The old timers diverted the creek to flow through hand cut trenches. The water was then controlled via a series of gates to strip away overburden. Sort of like hydraulicking. There’s not much left of the old workings today but it gives us an idea of where the pay streaks are.

Old Timer's Trenches — Old Timer’s Trenches

Sampling is key to any placer operation. Sloppy or inadequate sampling spells the death of many mining operations. After all you wouldn’t get married without going on a date first. We collected samples with a rugged 12″ auger drill. Each sample had a set depth interval and a measured volume. With accurate measurements we can extrapolate the sample data to evaluate the deposit over large areas. For example if we sample 500mg (1/2 gram) from 10 pails of material, that equates to just over 3 grams per cubic yard. We did have some just like that, and better.

After collection by the drill our samples were run through a mini wash plant. We were using a cool machine called “The Prospector” by Goldfield Engineering. The Prospector uses a water driven pelton wheel to create a vibration. That’s awesome because all it needs is a 2″ pump to run. The wheel rotates an eccentric weight similar to the way the a cell phone vibrates but on a larger scale. Using this machine I processed over 15 cubic yards of samples over 7 weeks.

The Prospector really eats through material. The shaker screen breaks it up almost as fast as you can feed it. It struggles when there is a lot of clay though. After each sample interval is run a cleanup is necessary. With this machine it’s a quick procedure. The concentrates from each sample are panned out with a gold pan. The gold is then dried out and weighed to be used in grade estimates.

As the summer solstice approaches the days get longer in the Yukon. In the summer the sun does not set in the Arctic it is after all the land of the midnight sun. The lack of darkness takes a little getting used to. In early May we had a couple of Northern lights shows that were pretty good. At that time there was about 2 hours of darkness where the Northern lights were visible. A week later it would no longer be dark enough.

We encountered few animals on the trip. This is described as a “hungry” part of the Yukon. One bear tried to enter our camp. It was a very large black bear, the electric fence slowed him down but it took a few bear bangers to scare him off. A huge mangey wolf casually pranced right in front of us one night. All the animals are big in the Yukon. Even the mosquitoes. They are so big that they often get up and fly away after you swat them. Unless you are willing to really smack yourself in the face, they are not going to die.

For some samples we had to use the excavator. The auger drill does not work well in areas where the permafrost has melted. We tried a few spots and the mixture of water and loose gravel would not stay on the auger flights. The excavator does not have that problem since it scoops up a bucket full of material, water and all. We used a huge 4″ pump to drain the holes first then sampled the bedrock and regolith with the hoe. The samples were of course put into pails and we measured the volume before processing.

We had a few other machines to help out as well. A couple of bulldozers, some quads, a side by side and a ’96 Toyota pickup with tracks instead of wheels. We took the tracks off once the snow was all gone using the hoe to lift the truck. Why bother with jacks when you have those Tonka toys kicking around.

The winter trail conditions rapidly deteriorated as the weather warmed up. The ground here is like muskeg with lots of water and mud. Just about everything got stuck at some point, except for the Nodwells. We had to cross a few creeks, mud and sometimes straight trough the trees.

The pursuit of gold will make men do strange things. In our case it involved a ton of work travelling over unforgiving terrain to drill holes down to bedrock. Our persistence and determination paid off though and we discovered a pay channel that extends over much of the drilled area. It is going to take some more work to map out the full extent but we already have clear evidence of a great deposit.

After 50 straight days it was time to go home. Our ride out was a DHC-3 Turbo-Otter, an impressive aircraft designed by de Havilland, a Canadaian company, in the 1950s. The Otter took our whole crew and all our gear without any issues. The turbine engine gives it the STOL capabilities to takeoff and land in a rugged bush airstrip like the one in this camp. We stopped along the way to drop off one of our guys and pick up some much needed beer before landing in Whitehorse.

I had a wild night in Whitehorse to close off the trip before heading home to BC. It was a good time in the bush but it is nice to return to the comforts of modern civilization.

Harrison Lake Adit Exploration

PlacerGold Trip Reports April 1, 2016gold, gold mining, gold rush, lode gold, lost mine, mining, vancouver 5 Comments

Last week my neighbour phoned me and asked if I wanted to go on a road trip to check out an adit by Harrison Lake. Of course I said yes. Who wouldn’t be down for a short road trip to check out an old mine adit.

The trip only took two hours from my home in Abbotsford, BC. We drove up to Harrison Hot Springs then transitioned to the 4×4 road called Harrison East FSR. Conditions were great for the trip out we got hit by rain on the way back but that’s to be expected on the West coast in March.

I brought along my mountain bike night riding light and it worked awesome! You can see the difference between my super light and a standard headlamp in the video. Check out the video below showing our exploration in the adit:

This adit was created a long time ago, probably a during the period of the Fraser River and Cariboo gold rushes (1860s – 1880s). No records have been found from that time period describing the adit though. During the gold rushes the Harrison was one of the major routes to the Cariboo and many miners worked in the region.

The adit extends for approximately 50m with a slight bend half way in. It cuts through altered schist formations and has several small quarz veins exposed inside. We sampled one of the veins which will be sent to a lab for fire assay. The map below is taken from a 1983 geological report of the area.

In addition to the 50m adit a vertical shaft had also been excavated. Unfortunately the shaft is filled with water so it cannot be explored at this time. Both excavations were carried out to explore a sizable quartz vein. The shaft is right on the 1m wide vein and driven vertically into the bedrock. The adit that we explored was intended to intersect the shaft and the vein. It seems that the miners missed. It is difficult to tell by how much.

Inside the adit there are wooden tracks that line the whole tunnel. These were probably part of an old rail system used to remove the excavated rock. It is not known why the miners abandoned the property, without any information we can only guess. There are other adits in the area that we’ll explore another time. Not bad for a Tuesday afternoon.

How Much Gold is Left on Earth?

PlacerGold Science January 18, 2016core, geology, gold, gold mining, gold rush, lode gold, mining, placer, placer claim 22 Comments

Is the world running out of gold? That seems to be a common theme in investment circles in recent years. This eye catching article on Visual Capitalist estimates that we’ll be out of gold by 2030. This article based on a report from Goldman Sachs claims we’d hit “peak gold” in 2015, GoldCore.
Peak gold is the same idea as peak oil. Where the peak is the moment when maximum world production is reached and declines from then on, eventually reaching zero production. Unlike oil though gold is not used up in consumption. It is typically stashed away in a vault or worn as jewellery.

Estimates for all the gold in the world mined to date hover around 165,000 metric tons. Some estimates go as high as 1 million tons but most experts would agree that under 200,000 is accurate. World gold supplies are difficult to quantify. That is because gold reserves are not always reported accurately. Over 50% of gold above ground is used for jewellery which makes it difficult to track. Gold rings, necklaces and such can change hands without any records. About 35% is stored as bullion for investments and reserves. Large holders of gold give misleading numbers regarding their reserves, presumably for security reasons but who knows?

The United States, Germany, Italy and France are the worlds largest holders of gold respectively. Each has their share of controversy surrounding their claimed gold deposits. There are conspiracy theories about the amount of gold stored in Fort Knox. Some believe it is empty and the government is just pretending its full of gold. Without seeing it for ourselves we’ll just have to accept the disclosed numbers.

To further add uncertainty to global gold production small scale miners do not typically report their take. This is especially true in third world countries. A lot of gold is mined in this way, primarily placer but hard rock as well.

How much gold is left in the ground? Nobody really knows. Mining companies of all sizes spend their exploration budget to map out potential deposits. They are a long ways from mapping the entire earth. The peak gold estimates are based on proven and indicated reserves that are reported by public mining companies.

There is no shortage of gold on earth. The problem is that it is much deeper than we can mine. Current scientific theories estimate that there is enough gold in the core to cover the surface of the earth with a 4 meter thick layer of pure gold. The density of the core is measured using several techniques including seismic geophysics. Seismic waves are measured from earthquakes all over the world. The wave properties change as they pass through the liquid outer core and the super dense inner core. S-waves can’t travel through liquid, that is how the outer core is mapped. The density of the inner core is greater than iron at 5,515 kg/m3. Clearly there are large amounts of substances that are heavier than iron to achieve that density.

We are limited to several thousand meters below the surface as far as mining is concerned. Check out this blog post on the origins of gold.

Lets do a little math. The average concentration of gold in Earth’s crust is estimated to be between 0.0011 ppm(source) and 0.0031 ppm(source). Now we can calculate the volume of the portion of the crust which can potentially be mined. The deepest gold mine in the World is TauTona Mine in South Africa which reaches 3.9 kilometers below ground. The TauTona mine, operated by AngloGold Ashanti, is a gold mine so its a good yard stick for how deep we can go.

The volume of the earth (approximated as a sphere) is 1,086,832,411,937 cubic kilometres. The calculated volume for the earth with 4km stripped off the top is 1,084,788,886,213 km³. Subtracting the two and using the average abundance of 0.0031 ppm we arrive at 6.3 billion cubic meters of gold in the top 4km of the crust. One more calculation, gold has a known density of 19.3 tons per m³. Which gives us a total mass of 122,264,143,828 or 122 billion metric tons. That is a lot of gold.

Our calculated estimate of 122 billion metric tons of theoretical gold includes the entire surface of the earth. Currently we are not equipped to mine the oceans, although technology is advancing quickly. Check out this article on sub-sea mining robots, LINK. The same processes that accumulate gold into deposits occur in the ocean just as they do on land. With 71% of the surface covered by ocean that is a significant area that is yet to be explored.

Lets adjust our estimate to account for only continental land which can be mined with today’s technology. So by subtracting the oceans we are left with 35 billion tons of gold on dry land.

Global production throughout the entirety of human history is 165,000 metric tons as previously mentioned. So in a very theoretical sense we have mined 0.00047% of the world’s surface gold. That’s very encouraging. Although not all of that gold is accumulated in mineable deposits. Typically you need at least 0.5 ppm to make a mine profitable. Depending on logistics, location, overburden and other factors that cut off grade can rise quite steeply. So all of that 35 billion tons is not really available to us.

Once gold is discovered it will be mined. We are too greedy to leave it in the ground. Take a look at the gold rushes of North America between 1849-1900. There are some great blog posts on the subject here, Gold Rushes. The hoard of gold hungry prospectors would descend on a creek once a discovery was made. They would move in, erect a town and mine it for all its worth. Within 2-3 years all the easy gold is gone and only the tenacious miners would remain to mine the small gold. The rush would continue elsewhere and repeat the cycle. The same thing happens with hard rock mining but on a longer time scale.

Peak gold takes this phenomena into account. Much like peak oil we’ve picked the low hanging fruit wherever it has been found. Gold is a little different because it is very hard to find. When it comes to oil reserves the big ones stick out like a sore thumb.

Typically it takes about 20 years to go from discovery to full scale gold mine. That involves all the steps to test a property using prospecting, geophysics, and diamond drilling. Delineating the reserve and all the stuff that it takes to build a modern mine (permits, studies, infrastructure and so on).

With the current state of the mineral exploration that 20 year lead time is going to come back to bite us. Over the last few years mineral exploration has dropped off to the point that it is almost non-existent. That seems counter-intuitive if we are running out of gold. Exploration is a high risk investment and people don’t take the risk unless commodity prices are high. The good news is that when prices spike again like they did in 2010 there will be a massive feeding frenzy.

So we’ve estimated that within 4000m of the surface of Earth’s crust there is 35 billion tons of gold. With a remaining 87 billion under the ocean. Only a small portion of that is concentrated enough to mine. Its a big world out there and we’ve only properly explored small pockets of it. The super easy stuff is largely gone but with advancements in technology and some ingenuity its there for the taking. For those explorers who are willing to put on their thinking cap and step outside of their comfort zone there is a bonanza waiting for us.

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