Gold in Goldfield

Bob Moriarty
Archives
Apr 30, 2015

One of the most interesting and highly potential gold districts in Nevada would have to be Goldfield Nevada subject of the 2nd day of a weeklong tour of Nevada with three of the most qualified geos in the state.

A prospector discovered gold in Goldfield in 1902. By 1904 30% of the gold mined in the state came from the dozens of mines in the district. Soon the town became the biggest town in the state. By 1907 the district was producing over 400,000 ounces a year but rapidly dropped off to 250,000 ounces a year of gold by 1912. In 1923 a major fire destroyed much of the town and the miners left for greener pastures.

Today most of the district is controlled by two entities, Waterton Global, a mining hedge fund and a private company funded by money from Texas.

Over the years, I have visited hundreds of mining projects and districts. I have never seen an area so rich literally screaming, “Mine me. Mine me” as Goldfield. The private company in control of what they call the Lode Star gold project has plans and is in the process of rolling the project into a shell that will be accomplished soon.

Over the past seven years, the Lode Star project has seen some drilling and some shaft rehabilitation. It wouldn’t be either hard or expensive to put it back into production. We went down one shaft that I believe was about 75 meters in depth. Drill results ran as high as 75 ounces of gold to the ton.

The area has been intensely mineralized. Back in the day, there were over 60 mine shafts. Literally the miners dug a hole and started producing. It was both highly dangerous and highly profitable with ore running up to 3800 ounces of gold or $76,000 to the ton. There was no drilling or systematic exploration, as we would do today.

Some projects are highly predictable. Goldfield is not. The ore is everywhere and nowhere. Even a very tightly grouped set of underground drill holes might not be able to define the ore shoots. But if drifting until you found ore worked 110 years ago, it certainly would work today.

The Lode Star people have the intention of starting to mine and sending the ore to a nearby mill for processing. I think they and Waterton Global have it exactly backwards. The entire purpose of exploration is to determine if you have an economic mine. If you do, you build a mill and mine.

Since over 4 million ounces of gold came out of Goldfield a hundred years ago, we know there is a mine. If it is anything other than a giant hole in the ground, there is another 5-10 million ounces of gold. I’d start the paperwork for a mill and tailings facility and get into production. Someone is going to make a lot of money there. It was the highest-grade district in Nevada and will be once again once someone thinks about it.

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Bob Moriarty
President: 321gold
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