EDITOR’S CORNER
Serendipitous Discoveries and
Sustainable Mineral Production John L. Berry, CPG-04032 In this issue of TPG we have a group of six peer reviewed
papers on various aspects of mining. David Abbott’s special contribution on sustainable mining, Larry Turner’s discus- sion of Greenfields vs Brownfields exploration, and John Wood’s paper on the ore controls of Carlin-type deposits are all linked by the topic of depletion. David questions the emphasis of the ninth of the Ten Fundamental Values of Geoethics, and takes the International Association for the Promotion of Geoethics (IAPG) somewhat to task because their discussion of ‘sustainability’ does not take into account that individual mineral deposits become depleted, or ‘mined out’. We then have to look for new deposits, with all kinds of consequences for the places where they are sought and may be found. David makes a point that I have not seen made before, and perhaps we are frightened to make it: that without a reliable supply of mineral resources, all of society will suffer. With a reliable supply of resources, the places where they are mined may suffer more than a little. There is a trade-off here that has been ignored: ‘society’ can’t have the resources it needs while the inhabitants of ‘locality X’ have a pristine environment; ‘locality X’ can only have a pristine environment at some cost to a very much larger number of people. Larry’s paper illustrates one reason why: we have focused on exploring for shallow deposits and now that slice of the earth is depleted over wide areas. We either
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David makes a point that I have not seen made before, and perhaps we are frightened to make it: that without a reliable supply of mineral resources, all of society will suffer..
have to go somewhere new, or go deeper, which will bring local problems. John’s paper describes one model that could allow us access to gold deposits at much deeper levels in very young volcanic or extensional terranes. These might be in areas valued for their scenery and recreational opportunities, and mining into rocks above 150°F would bring some real challenges and dangers.
Two additional papers though very different, discuss
mining history, and both mention serendipitous discovery: they are Peter Smith’s paper on the commemoration of the Potash industry of New Mexico and Graham Kelsey and others’ paper on the history of the Lovitt Mine in central Washington.
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Oct.Nov.Dec 2020 • TPG 3 AVAILABLE IN Finally, there is Robrecht Schmidz and Christian Schroeder’s
paper on slope stability in sand mines to satisfy the Geotechnical Engineers among us. Robrecht uses the word Geotechnics, a very European sounding word, but much less cumbersome than ‘Geotechnical Engineering’: he discusses the role of cohesion in maintaining slope stability.
We also have a wonderfully exotic report by Barney Popkin
on his recent stay in the troubled city of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, to help them with their water problems
This is my final issue of TPG as Editor: I have really enjoyed
all the people I have met through the work: the AIPG leadership at all levels, the authors with whom I have corresponded, and especially the AIPG Staff in Denver, not least Dorothy Combs, as well as Sara Pearson, who besides all her other responsibilities in AIPG has been doing an incredible job on the layout of TPG for the last three years. It is now time to turn TPG over to Adam Heft, who I am, sure, will do a better job than I could ever do!
PANGEAS & GEOLOGICALGLOBES
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