Resource World Magazine

8 www.resourceworld.com F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 9 While gold mining is still king in Nevada, there are other important mineral com- modities there as well such as lithium, copper, gypsum, lime, magnesium, perlite, molybdenum, salt, silica, silver, barium, clays, diatomite and vanadium – even geo- thermal heat. Gold production in Nevada has been increasing, rising from 166.1 tons in 2015 to 175.5 tons in 2017. This is about the same as all the gold mined in Canada, but that doesn't reveal the actual state of Nevada's gold mining sector. While Nevada may be a powerhouse of gold pro - duction, it is now accepted that most of the 'low-hanging fruit' has been picked. Dr. John Muntean of the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology told Resource World that the discovery rate has dropped. "The challenge is finding deeper, cov - ered or blind, deposits that have sufficient grades to be economic," said Muntean, a point that James Buskard, President of Nevada Exploration Inc. [NGE-TSXV; NVDEF-OTCQB] has noted. Buskard and the team at Nevada Exploration realized that less than half of Nevada's bedrock is exposed in its moun - tain ranges, and the 225 million ounces of gold produced to date are near exposed bedrock. The bedrock geology hidden beneath the sands in Nevada's valley basins is no different than that exposed in its ranges, making these covered areas pro - spective as well; however, they have seen limited exploration because conventional regional-scale geochemical sampling pro- grams are ill-suited to looking under cover known as overburden. These declining discoveries are not lim- ited to Nevada. A recent study that showed $27 billion had been spent on copper exploration over the last 10 years. That's over double of what has been spent in the preceding 18 years; however, 149 million tonnes of copper was defined in only 29 discoveries versus 863 million tonnes in 191 discoveries in the preceding 18 years. "For every dollar of exploration in the last decade, as an industry we cre - ated 47 cents of value and the result is, the cupboards are bare in terms of project pipelines," Buskard told Resource World. "I believe strongly that in the mid to long- term, supply constraints are going to be the biggest price drivers. We're going to have no choice but to pull up our socks and figure out how to get better at finding new deposits." Buskard added, "The reality is that we in the mineral industry are in a similar transition to what the oil and gas industry had to go through 60 years ago in terms of Phase 2 drilling operations at Cypress Development's Dean lithium prospect in the Clayton Valley, Nevada, adjacent to Albemarle's producing Silver Peak lithium mine. Photo courtesy Cypress Development Corp. Nevada Exploration and Mining by Ellsworth Dickson NEVADA IS A PRETTY SPECIAL PLACE AND NOT JUST FOR THE OVER-THE-TOP CASINOS AND GREAT ENTERTAINMENT ON THE LAS VEGAS STRIP. THE STATE ALSO HAPPENS TO BE A TREA - SURE TROVE OF MINERALS.

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