Barrick Gold's four gold mines are surrounded on either side of Mount Lewis.

In fact, these four gold mines are supposed to belong to the same vein. During the Rocky orogeny tens of millions of years ago, Nevada, which was originally on the edge of the ocean, was gradually uplifted by the strong force of the orogeny, and formed the current appearance.

During this orogeny, a large number of gold veins were formed around the Rocky Mountains, with the famous Alaska gold cluster to the north, the California gold cluster to the west, and the eastern foot of the mountain to form the Nevada and other states including Idaho, Utah and Arizona, of course, the most famous of which is Nevada.

Most of Nevada's Carlin-type gold mines are concentrated in the northeast and east-central regions of Nevada, in fact, this huge area is a large vein belt rich in gold, platinum and other precious metals and associated non-ferrous metals formed during the orogeny, which stretches intermittently for thousands of kilometers.

Therefore, in this area, you can often see large excavated and messy pits, some of which can definitely compete with the surface of the moon. Some of these mines are very close to each other, only a few kilometres away, but they belong to two different gold companies. But there are also the same four gold mines as Barrick Gold, all of which belong to the same company and belong to the same gold vein belt.

The last time Tang Feng came here, he flew directly to the top of Mount Lewis by helicopter, and then launched a star core at the top of the mountain to conduct a survey of this area of about 200 square miles. Overall, the gold reserves in this area are still good, but the ore grade is a little lower. The average grade is only 4 g/t, which is just within the range of industrial grades.

Of course, Barrick Gold still has two brushes, at least the four pits they chose are located in areas with relatively high ore grades, and one gold mine even reached the 13 g/t ore grade.

In general. The average grade of Barrick Gold's four gold mines can reach 7 g/t, which is considered a medium-to-high-grade gold ore in terms of vein gold, but the main reason why Barrick Gold completely abandoned these four gold mines is not because the gold reserves here are not large enough, nor because of the high mining cost, but that this area is a relatively rare concentration of arsenite mines.

In fact, the characteristics of Carlin-type gold ore are very obvious, that is, most of its associated minerals are pyrite, arsenite, stibnite, realgar, orpiment and cinnabar. These ores are generally toxic, so they are relatively difficult to mine.

It's just that most of the Carlin-type gold mines are associated with not a lot of this toxic mineral, but Barrick gold is miserable, and after digging to a certain depth in the pit, it is found that the concentration of poisonous sand here is unusually high.

The so-called poisonous sand is the white arsenic stone formerly known in China, and it is also the main source mineral used to extract arsenic in ancient China. In fact, the chemical name of this mineral is FeAsS, which is arsenic pyrite. However, the arsenic content of this mineral can generally exceed 46%.

The so-called arsenic is commonly known as "arsenic". Its oxide arsenic trioxide is the well-known arsenic. Moreover, arsenic is a highly toxic mineral, so arsenic pyrite is called "poisonous sand".

The area has a very high amount of arsenite sand, and it is estimated that the arsenite mines buried deep underground deceived the eyes of Barrick's gold surveyors when the four gold mines were selected to mine the sites, and then when the four gold mines, which started at about the same time, were excavated to a certain depth. Only then was a high concentration of toxic sand discovered, and as a result, the four gold mines immediately turned into chicken ribs.

Poisonous sand is deadly, and if the concentration is high, it can even be more tormenting than the associated uranium mine. It is very normal for gold mines to be associated with uranium mines, as long as they are well protected against radiation. Then there is basically no problem in terms of mining.

However, toxic sand is different, this mineral will produce toxic dust when mined, and it will be fatal if inhaled. And the poisonous sand in this area is even more ruthless, because the cobalt content in this area is particularly high, so the poisonous sand here should actually be called "cobalt poisonous sand".

Cobalt isn't a good thing, the mineral gets its name from the German word Kobold, which means "bad elf". Because cobalt ore is poisonous, miners and smelters often get sick while working, and cobalt can also contaminate other metals, and these undesirable effects have been seen as elven pranks in the past.

So, when cobalt and poison sands are combined, these four gold mines really become a tragedy.

Of course, for others, there is a great possibility that this situation is helpless, but for Tang Feng, it is just a matter of consuming a little star core's energy, but it is a pity that the cobalt content in this area is so high, but it is not a radioactive cobalt-60, otherwise, the star core can have a full meal again.

Now that these four gold mines have been owned by Freeport McMullen Copper and Gold Company, the handover between Tang's Anglo-American Group and Freeport Company is underway, and in a few days, these four gold mines, along with the exploration and mining rights of more than 200 square miles of nearby land, will also belong to Tang's Anglo-American Group.

Therefore, when Tang Feng came here again, he did not hesitate to activate the star core, and selected three gold mines for about 4,000 tons of gold and more than 2,000 tons of platinum stored in the star core.

Of the four gold mines, the two gold mines in the valley on the east side of Lewis Mountain are the closest to each other, less than ten kilometers apart, but the two gold mines on the west side of Lewis Mountain are a little further apart from each other, and the two gold mines separated by Mount Lewis are even more distant from each other, almost 100 kilometers, which is still a straight line distance.

The four gold mines basically form an irregular quadrilateral, with Mount Lewis in the middle. The three gold mines that Tang Feng chose to place the precious metals in the star core were the two gold mines on the east side of Lewis Mountain and the gold mine on the west side to the north.

The two gold mines on the east side of Lewis Mountain, which were very close to each other, could be directly merged into a single gold mine, which was directly placed by Tang Feng about 2,000 tons of gold and 1,000 tons of platinum. As for the gold mine on the east side of Lewis Mountain, it was also placed by Tang Feng with about the same amount of precious metals.

Of course, while doing these works, Tang Feng also used the coagulation function a little, and condensed the cobalt poison sand in the area where the precious metal minerals were placed into the original old pit (to be continued). )