On my home page I posted the following:
"Ever year in the United States, millions of dollars are spent in the mining
industry trying to recover gold and platinum from barren ores, desert sands,
thermal springs, etc..... In the following and upcoming reports I discuss
the known successes (as soon as I find one) and the multitude of the failures."
In a letter received from Everett Karels, a member of the New White Gold
Forum, he was kind enough to provide the following synopsis of "claims" made
by David Hudson:
"ORMEs are naturally occurring in certain volcanic soils dating back to
early geological events. Such soils are prevalent throughout the western
United States. Soils which are considered rich in these elements might
contain up to six percent of this material. The remaining 94 percent or
more of the material is ordinary dirt comprised mainly of silicon compounds.
Initial processing consists of removing the dirt to get the residue. The
residue comprises ORMEs or the 'white powder.'"
"Because of the unique and valuable physical properties of ORMEs, there has
developed a desire to produce them from the metallic form of the elements.
In other words, there are reasons to convert metallic precious elements to
ORMEs. Hudson has found ways to do this although he reports that the cost
of doing so is prohibitively expensive. The reason for the high cost is due
principally to the high, per-ounce cost of most precious metals. The process
itself is tedious but is not particularly expensive. But it is much less
expensive to start with natural material and to then "simply" remove the
ordinary elements from the natural material to get pure ORMEs matter."
"Because the percentage of ORMEs in certain volcanic soils is so high (up to
6 percent) in comparison with normal high-grade ore (up to 0.0015 percent),
there is considerable interest by mining companies in the technology
required to convert ORMEs to their metallic form. The yield increases by a
factor of 4000. So far, no mining company has figured out how to do this.
The processing technique is highly proprietary and will not be disclosed,
according to Hudson. Hudson has stated that his sole interest is in the
monatomic form of these elements; he has no interest in producing the
metallic form of the precious elements. Further, Hudson states that there
is never a need to convert monatomic materials to their metallic state
during the manufacturing process. The only time a conversion is required is
to allow standard analytical chemical procedures to be used to identify a
small sample of the material."
NOW, WHERE'S the BEEF?
Assuming what David says is true, that certain volcanic soils have as high
as 6.0% of precious metal ORME's this would equate to an average of
$600,000.00 of precious metals per ton of volcanic ash! If one processed
two tons of this material they would be millionaires. Also, if this were
true, companies such as Phelps Dodge, ASARCO, Johnson Matthey, Engelhard and
numerous others would allocate millions of dollars to develop the
technologies required.
Why aren't they doing so? The answer is simple -- no significant amounts of
precious metals exist within these formations.
This brings up a fundamental question -- Why have promoters and prospectors
raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors to break this labyrinth?
The answer is simple -- lack of fundamental knowledge.
As I stated, this volcanic ash does not in any way contain precious metals
in the form of ORME's or a metallic state. I will take this one step
further by stating, that if you use esoteric procedures you can produce
precious metals from these formations.
NO, I am not contradicting myself, for the answer is simple if you know
what you are looking for.
What is the main constituent of volcanic ash? The answer is sodium.
Now what happens when you place sodium in a certain configuration with lead?
You produce gold and platinum. (ref.
http://www.netzone.com/~discpub/pb_au.html Converting lead to gold) Taking
this to the next plain, what happens when you place sodium in contact with
cadmium (a normal contaminate associated with lead)? Again, the answer is
simple -- you produce palladium and rhodium.
A caveat to this being -- there is no way to upscale the process whereas one
can process a ton of material.
When one takes 30 grams of a volcanic ore and produces a 300 milligram bead
of precious metals they can easily equate this to 1.0% of the original ore
has precious metals.
Here's the rub. To establish a base line, one should then take some reagent
grade soda ash (Na2CO3) and repeat the same process. The answer will be
the same.
With full respect to David and his observations, the reason that he lost his
interest in precious metals is it is mathematically impossible to upscale
the nuclear reaction which occurs in the assay procedure.
NO, I am not throwing stones, just attempting to get to the bottom of real
observations by supplying a logical answer which can be supported by
mathematical models and independently replicated!