Sun Tzu once wrote:
'To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy'
and never has such a phrase been more apt description of todays events than this. Today everyone, I have become the rock. I have oozed over the minerals, flowed through the fractures, become the elements and lived the life of a fluid. I have looked through hand lenses picked up drill core, estimated content and finally seen GOLD.
Today was the first day on the job and it was training, discussion and more training. Heading to work at 8am we ate breakfast with healthy anticipation of the day to come. The chatter was lively for such an early start and with the midnight sun blazing its eternal light we had all gotten very little sleep.
Arriving at the Mine site we were greeted with a healthy dose of geology.
"We are looking for gold here" they proclaimed and being in an area well known for its metal enrichment we are confident in our abilities to find it.
However, as we came to realise we must first understand how gold the is formed, secondly we must know what to look for, and finally when we know what we need to look we will know what is really there.
As the day progressed and rusty gears in my head began to turn joining old lessons together with new understanding i began to view this like a Sherlock Holmes story:
Location: London, Bakers Street. Time: 2:30 pm
It was a warm day, the wind blusted through the open window the sound of the street below muffled by the fluttering curtains. I sat, book in hand reading. Geologist Holmes, sat in the chair opposite, suddenly looked up. At that very present moment there was a loud ring at the bell, and I could hear Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, raising her voice in a wail of expostulation and dismay.
"By heavens, Geologist Holmes," I said, half rising, "I believe the geographers are really after us."
"No, it's not quite so bad as that. It is the Finnish force—the Geologists."
As he spoke, there came a tremendous thereunder of heavily booted feet upon the stairs, a clatter of high voices, and in rushed a dozen dirty and ragged students. There was some show of discipline among them, despite their tumultuous entry, for they instantly gathered in a huddle and produced a rock with expectant faces. One of their number, one stood forward with an air of complete uncertainty which was very funny in such a disreputable little scarecrow presented it to me.
"Help us! Geologist Sherlock" They cried in unison "we found this, its surely gold"
Despite the miscommunication I was curious so I took the supposed gold. And so it was! Heavily it glittered in the sunlight, huge golden crystals shimmering in the midday sun that poured though the window. Intertwined amongst the golden crystals a white almost translucent veining mingled with the gold a black matrix forming the background creating a mesmerizing pattern that lead the eyes in distraction.
"Surely its true" I whispered, "A Quartz veined gold seam"
He lent forward and with a wave of his thin fingers snatched the rock from my outstretched hand. Touching it with a pen he placed the rock in a bowl of clear liquid on the table stared for a few brief seconds and then turned away.
"Carbonate veined, ultramafic rock consisting of magnetite and some sulfides, completely worthless" he pronounced.
His sharp curt words cut through the awed silence like a knife. The magic gone my hands dropped to my sides, my shock obvious.
"You are from the lapland greenstone belt in Northern Finland. Truly you have not done your required reading" He continued, "Go away and bring me something more taxing next time"
The scrawny number shuffled away, geologist hammers clinking sadly as they tramped down the stairs.
With barley a second glance he turned his back on the room. He plucked the rock from the liquid and held it up against the mirror on the wall.
“Your deductive reasoning has improved Watson" He said slowly. "Your observations were correct but you drew the wrong conclusion. You did not collect enough data, and therefore your inturpetation was wrong."
I was flabbergasted. I charged forward and snatched the small rock from his thin hands.
"See the yellow gold!" I shouted pointing, "see the white quartz. Surely this is a gold laden quartz vein" I tossed the rock back to him in defiance my chin raised determined to see him wrong.
He stood upon a chair, and holding up the rock in his left hand and the small bowl of liquid in his right he curved his right arm over the rock and let a single drop rest upon the white surface.
“Good heavens!' I cried in amazement.
The rock had begun to bubble.
"Ha, you see it now. My eyes have been trained to examine rocks and not just their appearance. It is the first quality of a Geologist investigator that he should see through a disguise. 'You see' Watson, but you, like the other Geologists, do NOT see"
I took the rock again and held it with new eyes.
"The small bowl which you surely observed me place the sample into was not, what you first thought, 'water'. But a mild acid, which indicated to me the white mineral; which you assumed was quartz was in fact carbonate, which reacts with acid. Thus the bubbling."
"Even so" I mustered "gold is found with both with quartz and carbonate. How do you know it is worthless"
"You are most correct dear Watson, Gold is often found with Quartz but also with carbonates. So I needed more data. Observe:"
He held the sample to the light the gold glittering in the sun. Then I saw it as clear as day.
"Cubic" I whispered.
"Elementary my dear Watson. Gold rarely has sharp edges, being soft it easily becomes rounded. You were correct observing the distinctive yellow colour but the sharp cubic edges tell me another story. A sulfide that has lead many an inexperienced geologists astray"
"Fools Gold" I exclaimed slumping into the nearest chair
"Precisely" he said returning to the floor and begining to pace the room.
"And the rest" I muttered defeated.
"Easy" he began. "The ultramafic rock is simple, a colour test it all it took. Is it dark or is it light" He looked from one hand to the other and closed his left hand "Dark. Observe" he turned to me and produced a small pen spinning it round he placed it upon the dark area of the rock. "Pull!" He commanded.
Pulling I felt a resistance.
"Feel that?"
I nodded the affirmative.
"That is magnetism. I would obviously need a thin section to confirm but given the rest of the minerals It would be a safe bet to assume magnetite as the obvious choice. Which as we all know is magnetic. As for the rest, that was easy: the Salmiakki in the boys pocket assured me the boy was from Finland and the fact his coat was blazoned with RUPERT RESOURCES along the back told me he was from the Pahtavaara mine in the greenstone belt."
Watson and Holmes in "The Geological Man".
As Geologist Holmes has shown, the methods of deduction are really simple but knowing the way in which rocks have formed and what they look like can really help someone when identifying things in the field and what to look for when searching for gold.
I will leave you now, the words of Geologist Holmes ringing in your ears and with a brief view of how geology is done.
PS: This was fun I hope your enjoying this, leave me some feedback and join me tomorrow:
The
Geology
Is
Getting
REAL!!
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