Looking for elephants, mining geologists in Nevada increasingly are headed back to elephant country.
Old mine sites in the state some of them abandoned for many decades are getting a fresh look at gold prices remain near $400 an ounce.
Mining companies believe, too, that new technology increases their chances of wringing a profit, even from mines where the highest-grade reserves long ago headed to the smelter.
"Almost every old district is getting a new look," says Russ Fields, president of the Nevada Mining Association.
Dampening some of the rush to old sites, however, is the knowledge that modern- day miners assume the environmental responsibility for long-ago mining activity.
One of the biggest examples of the trend is found 12 miles south of
Battle Mountain, where Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp.
is investing more than $200 million to bring the Phoenix property back to life.
That mine is expected to be in operation by 2006, says Newmont spokesman Doug Hock, and the mine is expected to deliver annual sales of between 400,000 and 450,000 ounces of gold and 18 million to 20 million pounds of copper over its anticipated 15-year life.
Even though mining dates to the 1870s on the property, Newmont believes improved technology will allow it to profitably extract the 0.025 ounces of gold per ton that remain in the property's 73.3 million tons of ore.
Then, too,Hock says Newmont brings efficiencies to the processing because it operates other large-scale mines along the Interstate 80 corridor of eastern Nevada.
But not just big mining companies are giving a new look to old properties.
Vancouver-based Bonaventure Enterprises Inc., for instance, is poking around its properties near Goldfield in Esmeralda County a region that boomed with gold discoveries at the turn of the century.
"The science today is just extraordinary," says Doug Collins of Reno, a director of the junior mining company.
Bonaventure, using research that ties gold deposits to low-magnetic areas in the earth, is hammering electrodes into its property and matching the electromagnetic data with historic records of mining activity.
If it can identify a million-ounce deposit of ore, Bonaventure will look for a major mining company to launch a mine.
The resumption of mining on an old site means, however, that today's operator takes responsibility for environmental cleanup of problems created years ago.
Even so, mining operators think they can make new projects work.
"We're seeing companies taking on properties that have significant environmental liabilities," says Alan Coyner, administrator of the Nevada Division of Minerals.
Newmont's Phoenix project near Battle Mountain is one of those properties; the Robinson copper mine near Ely, which Quadra Mining Ltd.
plans to reopen, is another.
At some of those properties, the issue isn't the technology of environmental cleanup.
Instead, the insurers that write the bonds required by regulators bonds that guarantee funds will be available for cleanup many decades in the future have difficulty gauging the risks involved with a mine that incorporates old holes.
"There's opportunity at those old sites," says Fields.
"But there certainly are challenges as well."
The new focus on old mining sites gives increased importance to the voluminous records maintained by the state geologist since Nevada's earliest days of statehood.
Those records include maps, geological studies and mine production figures all of which provide hints for today's mineral exploration companies.
Some researchers look for old mines that still might have resources to be recovered.
State Geologist Jon Price says that others use the state's records to find geological formations or trace minerals similar to those in historic mining districts.
Their research often is pressured by the knowledge that others, too, are looking and preparing to launch competitive bids for attractive properties.
Collins says Bonaventure Enterprises, for instance, has watched the market grow hotly competitive even as it has assembled a package of three mining prospects within the last six months.
