News
Thoughts on geology, the mining industry, and more.
All on One Page of Engineering and Mining Journal…
As I was skipping rapidly over the mining news and the now-standard genuflections to the “net-zero” energy transition in various sections of the magazine written by people who should know better, I paused on this page (below) for the irony. I wonder if I keep reading...
The Orotron II, or How My Invention Nearly Ended My Career
With all this talk recently about artifiicial intelligence, we need to be careful with its application. A fairly long time ago I was Chief Geologist for a mining company that had recently purchased an operating gold mine on a southern continent, the geological staff...
Drill Hole Information Effect (DIE)
I'd like to introduce the patient reader and my clients to a conceptually simple tool that is useful for the assessment of resource risk. The Drill Hole Information Effect (DIE), as I propose to call it, is the observation that the deeper portions of...
Confessions of an Economic Geologist: Part II – ESG
It’s time to get the pile of magazines off my desk which serve as a daily reminder of ESG, Dr. Evil’s newest creation. If I can just write this post, wasting as few words as possible, I promise myself and you to return to technical topics. Writing my notes about ESG...
Confessions of an Economic Geologist: Part I – Feeding the Mineral Baby
Obviously, geology is not the oldest profession, but I wonder if, as the science of very old stuff, it’s logical that we practitioners would so easily sell ourselves? What on ‘earth’ am I talking about? I’m not talking about a miner plunking his mercury-soaked...
Changing of the Guard – Part 2 – The Anaconda Mapping Method
Continuing on with more on the Anaconda system of technical control of mining discussed in Part I, particularly the Anaconda mapping method. In Part I, we had a look at the Anaconda technical control system for engineering and geology and how it was implemented at the...
Changing of the Guard – Part 1 – The Anaconda System
The mining industry has lost one of its best mining engineers with the death of James S Knowlson V this last January 2, 2022. Jim was the Chief Engineer at Anaconda’s Butte, Montana operations, starting there as an underground sampler in the late 60’s while he worked...
2020–A Year of Exceptional Innumeracy
I read an op-ed piece piece today by Malcolm Kendrick (RT News), a UK physician, who recounted an incredible metric-imperial conversion bust. In 1998, NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter burned up in the Mars atmosphere because of a failure to convert thruster pounds of...
Correct Estimates of Development Tons and Grade
At first glance, reporting of grade and tons from underground face sampling seems like a no-brainer application of simple arithmetic in EXCEL, right? Yup, no argument there…except, how come it is almost always done incorrectly due to faulty formulas, faulty...
The QP System — Who’s Being Served?
If investors believe they are protected by the Qualified Person system, they should read on. The current system mostly serves management, puts undue burden of responsibility on the QP, and may deceive investors who believe that the QP is truly independent of the issuer.
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