Mine Tour in the Interior BC

This week I had the opportunity to check out several mines in the interior of British Columbia. Both mines were near Logan Lake and Merrit BC. The first mine was a gold mine with historic production and possible future reserves. It was an awesome property. There were thousands of meters of core from drilling programs. Most of the gold mineralization was contained in quartz veins rich in pyrite with sericite alteration. We had to act as if we were geologists looking at the property for a possible acquisition. After looking at maps, minerals and the gold veins we had to decide if we were going to purchase the property or not. Me being an optimist thought the property was conducive for a future mine. It was a great chance to see a real life prospect and possible future mine. I would love to work on the project.


The following property was the Highland Valley Copper Mine owned by Teck Cominco. The Bingham Copper style pit is the largest of the kind in Canada but still quite small compared to Bingham. The mine is still huge. It was awesome to go inside the pit and look for minerals. I found some great specimens. The mine contains good copper and molybdenum. It was cool to check out the machinery working. We also got to check out the mill. It was awesome to check out how they get the metal out of the rock. These are just a few pictures of the process. They crush, then float off the metal due to it's hydrophobic nature, after which they collect and seperate the copper from the moly. Lastly they dry and ship the concentrate to Asia. The mill was ginormous using as much electricity as a city with 100,000 people every day. It also uses the same water as nearby Kamloops. The rock crushers are massive and obliderate the rocks through autogonous or semi-autogonous processes. The metallic slurry frothing off the top of the flotations cells were amazing. All I could think about is my own ideas and future plans with mining. The weather was freezing and averaged about -4 degrees celcius. But the trip was worth it.

The pit from a distance.
Our class in the Lornex pit with a shovel in the background that could scoop up a suburban in its shovel.
Some of the mineralization associated with the mine. The next picture is one of the crushers.
Metal moly in a flotation and seperation cell.

Me back on the island after this trip to the interior. I have grown quite fond of the island and love to be by the ocean and the mild temps and weather that are associated with Victoria.