Ore was trucked up out of the Production Pits and tipped into the crusher hopper (at the far right of the top photo).
There it was fed to a primary crusher and deposited in the stockpile cone (at the far left of the top photo) awaiting drawdown to the belt feeding the mill (located out of sight behind the cone in this photo). The amount of gold that was available to extract through milling from each truckload of ore was approx. 1½ oz. – to 3 oz. This could also be the amount we retrieve from every other truckload from the mine, since we had to move approx. equal amounts of waste rock to get to the ore.
Ore was processed through successive crushing and grinding stages, breaking the rock down into a talc-like powder before feeding it through a line of 10 agitation tanks where the gold was dissolved into solution. Gold was absorbed from the solution onto activated carbon granules. This was a modified C-I-L circuit.
Gold bearing carbon granules were treated in an enclosed tank, followed by a stripping column where gold was dissolved in a hot caustic solution under pressure. From the stripping column, gold was electroplated onto steel wool cathodes, which were transferred to electro-refining cells where the gold was plated onto stainless steel sheets.
Gold percipitates were then scraped from the stainless steel plates, melted in a crucible furnace at 2000 degrees and cast as 700 oz dore’ bars containing about 60% gold and 40% silver.
