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Click on the underlined words in the text and it brings up an explanation (mostly from Wikipedia) with an illustration; click on the picture (not on the text), to grab and move the pop-up or to close it again.
Location
The PollyAnn mine is in Yavapai County, near Prescott, Arizona
The Story
The mine belongs to a gentleman who grew up in the area and harvested the mine shovel by shovel over the last 30 years by taking a few pounds of the ore home and extracting
Gold
(15%),
Platinum
Platinum: Its name is derived from the Spanish termplatina del Pinto, which is literally translated into "little silver of the Pinto River." It is a dense, malleable, ductile, precious, gray-white transition metal. Even though it has six naturally occurring isotopes, platinum is one of the rarest elements in the Earth's crust. Platinum is generally unreactive. It exhibits a remarkable resistance to corrosion, even at high temperatures, and as such is considered a noble metal. As a result, platinum is often found chemically uncombined as native platinum. Because it occurs naturally in the alluvial sands of various rivers, it was first used by pre-Columbian South American natives. It was referenced in European writings as early as 16th century, but it was not until Antonio de Ulloa published a report on a new metal of Colombian origin in 1748 that it became investigated by scientists.
Platinum is used in catalytic converters, laboratory equipment, electrical contacts and electrodes, platinum resistance thermometers, dentistry equipment, and jewelry. Because only a few hundred tons are produced annually, it is a scarce material, is very valuable and is a major precious metal commodity. Being a heavy metal, it leads to health issues upon exposure to its salts, but due to its corrosion resistance it is not toxic as a metal. Some of its compounds, most notably Cisplatin, are applied in chemotherapy against certain types of cancer.
(60%),
Palladium
Palladium is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal that was discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston, who named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was named after the epithet of the Greek goddess Athena, acquired by her when she slew Pallas.
Palladium, along with platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium form a group of elements referred to as the platinum group metals (PGMs). Platinum group metals share similar chemical properties, but palladium has the lowest melting point and is the least dense of these precious metals.
One in four goods manufactured today either contain platinum group metals or the platinum group metals play a key role during their manufacturing process. Over half of the supply of palladium and its congener platinum goes into catalytic converters, which convert up to 90% of harmful gases from auto exhaust (hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide) into less harmful substances (nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water vapor). Palladium is found in many electronics including computers, mobile phones, multi-layer ceramic capacitors, component plating, low voltage electrical contacts, and SED/OLED/LCD televisions. Palladium is also used in dentistry, medicine, hydrogen purification, chemical applications, and groundwater treatment. Palladium plays a key role in the technology used for fuel cells, which combines hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity, heat and water.
Ore deposits of palladium and other platinum group metals are rare, and the most extensive deposits have been found in the norite belt of the Bushveld Igneous Complexin the Transvaal in South Africa, the Stillwater Complex in Montana, United States, the Sudbury District of Ontario, Canada, and the Norilsk Complex in Russia. In addition to mining, recycling is also a source of palladium, mostly from scrapped catalytic converters. The numerous applications and limited supply sources of palladium result in palladium drawing considerable investment interest.
(5%),
Rhodium
Rhodium is a chemical element that is a rare, silvery-white, hard and chemically inert transition metal and a member of the platinum group. It is one of the rarest precious metals and the most expensive member of that class.
Rhodium was discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston. It is found in platinum- or nickel ores together with the other members of the platinum group metals. Rhodium is mostly used as a catalyst in the three-way catalytic converter. Rhodium is inert against corrosion and most aggressive chemicals, and because of that and its rarity, rhodium is usually alloyed with platinum or palladium and applied in high-temperature and corrosion-resistive coatings. White gold is often plated with a thin rhodium layer to improve its optical impression while sterling silver is often rhodium plated for tarnish resistance. Rhodium detectors are used in nuclear reactors to measure the neutron flux level.
(15%) and
iridium
Iridium is a very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum family. Iridium is the second densest element (after osmium) and is the most corrosion-resistant metal, even at temperatures as high as 2000 °C. Iridium was discovered in 1803 among insoluble impurities in natural platinum. Smithson Tennant, the primary discoverer, named the iridium for the goddess Iris, personification of the rainbow, because of the striking and diverse colors of its salts. Iridium is one of the rarest elements in the Earth's crust, with annual production and consumption of only three tons.
Iridium is found in meteorites with a much higher abundance than its average quantity in the Earth's crust. It is thought that the total amount of iridium in the planet Earth is much higher than that observed in crustal rocks, but as with other platinum group metals, the high density and tendency of iridium to bond with iron caused most iridium to descend below the crust when the planet was young and still molten. (5%)
on his back porch! It put his kids through college and paid the mortgage on his home in Prescott.
He uses special chemicals and electrolysis to separate the different metals. If you just use a regular fire assay on this ore, you will burn it all up and you get nothing. With his method, he extracts the following precious metals per ton of ore:
18oz of gold
50oz of platinum,
4oz of palladium,
12oz of rhodium and
4oz of iridium.
The pictures on the left are from part 1 of the mine. Part 2 has the water and that is where the water assay came from. At that particular point is a large open room with two portals. Inside are two shafts, with four tunnels. Two are running North-South and two are running East-West, they are laid out like a Tic-tac-toe board. The water assay was taken at the room opening and is surface water and therefore does not paint the whole picture.
Larger style mining and processing will start next week so you can see for yourself what comes out of the ore, it is amazing!
The owner would sell for $5B, but would also consider a joint venture. There is a small miner's permit which only allows for a couple of tons per week. According to the owner
there is potentially $980T worth of metals on his 140 acres down to about 200ft. Recent sampling has shown that each ton of ore has $15MM of metals in it.
There are no other geological reports besides what is on this website. I do have one water assay, but that does not show much more than what I wrote here. So, engage your spirit of adventure, sign the NDA, return it with a POF (proof of funds), and I will put you in touch!
$5B for a buy-out or make a Joint Venture offer
To receive the details, fill out the NDNC.pdf and fax it with your POF to 866/592 5124 or email it to me.
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