Jim Richmond Geologist-miner-inventor
"Living Outside the Box"For Love of the Game
I am Jim Richmond. I have been in the gold mining and small miner investment business since 1977. I started out as a wilderness placer gold miner, for over a decade, in California's Trinity Alps Wilderness area. I experienced fluvial and glacial eskers and streams up close and personal. My quest to recover gold using gravity and flowing water matured over that decade and even led to the efficient recovery of mercury from the river silts, sands and gravels. Imagine that, direct experience recovering mercury from a natural environment. Besides being a placer miner with a burro, I have an MS in Hydrogeology, with Distinction. I have presented conference talks, papers and Posters on sand and gravel mining impacts on the coastlines of the World. I have traveled the world investigating placer and hard rock gold deposits for myself and my investor friends. Being “outside the box” I conceived a new approach to open pit gold ore treatment while Mine Geologist at the Castle Mountain Mine, Hart, CA. I revealed to the team that the gold values being drilled and realized by Viceroy Gold Inc. were coarse-grained in nature and NOT silica-encapsulated submicron sized gold particles as senior management GUESSED. As a result of my PANNING a high-grade assay pulp and further showing (panning) free gold at all ore-grades from all ore locations, a 1000 ton/day mill circuit was planned and installed at the mine. The Hart location was intensely clay altered, the -3/8" crushed ore would be agglomerated prior to stacking on the leach pads. Recalling an idea I had while in the Trinity Alps, I drew up a flow sheet and presented it to the Mine Metallurgist. My flow sheet showed the tailings from the 1000 ton/day mill being agglomerated with the -3/8' crushed ore prior to loading on the leach pads... I wanted the residual gold the gravity circuit did not catch. By God, they devised a way to dewater the mill tailings and they were then mixed (agglomerated) with crushed ore and placed on the Heap Leach Pad. NO TAILINGS IMPOUNDMENT FACILITY WAS REQUIRED. An Industry First!!! My work alone led to a $50 million dollar improvement in project economics. The Castle Mountain Mine, in California, has re-opened and my work is still relevant in this mine with 4 million ounces of gold in Reserves. I have a good handle on conventional gravity recovery systems. I understand flotation equipment and technology having worked on some big flotation cells in the past.In mid 2021, an idea was taking shape and I proceeded on building and testing a prototype that could separate dense minerals from waste and could handle a high-volume throughput using elutriation. Patent Pending. For Love of the Gamewww.elutriation.net
I am Jim Richmond. I have been in the gold mining and small miner investment business since 1977. I started out as a wilderness placer gold miner, for over a decade, in California's Trinity Alps Wilderness area. I experienced fluvial and glacial eskers and streams up close and personal. My quest to recover gold using gravity and flowing water matured over that decade and even led to the efficient recovery of mercury from the river silts, sands and gravels. Imagine that, direct experience recovering mercury from a natural environment. Besides being a placer miner with a burro, I have an MS in Hydrogeology, with Distinction. I have presented conference talks, papers and Posters on sand and gravel mining impacts on the coastlines of the World. I have traveled the world investigating placer and hard rock gold deposits for myself and my investor friends. Being “outside the box” I conceived a new approach to open pit gold ore treatment while Mine Geologist at the Castle Mountain Mine, Hart, CA. I revealed to the team that the gold values being drilled and realized by Viceroy Gold Inc. were coarse-grained in nature and NOT silica-encapsulated submicron sized gold particles as senior management GUESSED. As a result of my PANNING a high-grade assay pulp and further showing (panning) free gold at all ore-grades from all ore locations, a 1000 ton/day mill circuit was planned and installed at the mine. The Hart location was intensely clay altered, the -3/8" crushed ore would be agglomerated prior to stacking on the leach pads. Recalling an idea I had while in the Trinity Alps, I drew up a flow sheet and presented it to the Mine Metallurgist. My flow sheet showed the tailings from the 1000 ton/day mill being agglomerated with the -3/8' crushed ore prior to loading on the leach pads... I wanted the residual gold the gravity circuit did not catch. By God, they devised a way to dewater the mill tailings and they were then mixed (agglomerated) with crushed ore and placed on the Heap Leach Pad. NO TAILINGS IMPOUNDMENT FACILITY WAS REQUIRED. An Industry First!!! My work alone led to a $50 million dollar improvement in project economics. The Castle Mountain Mine, in California, has re-opened and my work is still relevant in this mine with 4 million ounces of gold in Reserves. I have a good handle on conventional gravity recovery systems. I understand flotation equipment and technology having worked on some big flotation cells in the past.In mid 2021, an idea was taking shape and I proceeded on building and testing a prototype that could separate dense minerals from waste and could handle a high-volume throughput using elutriation. Patent Pending. For Love of the Gamewww.elutriation.net
sand and gravel mining research
