Page 10 - Handbook of Gold Exploration and Evaluation

Foreword

I am honoured and extremely pleased to write the foreword for Eoin
Macdonald's book Handbook of Gold Exploration and Evaluation. Eoin's first
book on this subject, Alluvial Mining ± The Geology, Technology and
Economics of Placers, published in 1983, was aimed at a basic understanding
of the fundamentals of alluvial mining theory and practice, primarily for beach
sand minerals. In the subsequent years Eoin realised that a book based on
alluvial gold deposits was warranted and indeed needed. Handbook of Gold
Exploration and Evaluation is the result and represents the knowledge and
foresight of a man with over 65 years of expertise and practical experience in the
fields of exploration and mining of mineral deposits across the globe.
Rich alluvial gold deposits have been mined for centuries and continue to
capture the interest and imagination of specialists and lay people in the search
for the yellow metal. But with increases in demand and depletion of easily
identified and won detrital gold deposits, exploration has entered into a new and
exciting phase. It is thus pleasing to see a new book that recognises the common
relationship of exploration geology, geochemistry and remote sensing
techniques in the search for both alluvial and hard rock gold ores.
This book contains nine chapters covering topics as diverse as the nature and
history of gold, geology of gold ore deposits, gold deposition in the weathering
environment, sedimentation and detrital gold, gold exploration, lateritic and
placer gold sampling, mine planning and practice, metallurgical processes and
design, and evaluation, risk and feasibility. The breadth of subject matter
contained in this book is outstanding and I know of no better and more up-to-
date book on alluvial gold deposits, exploration and mining.
Discussions involving the methods, hazards and costs of conducting mining
operations of primary gold ores at depth are beyond the scope of the treatment
but an indisputable and most important conclusion is that both primary and
secondary gold ventures profit equally from the same detailed field investiga-
tions. Detrital gold accumulations represent the weathered detritus of their host
rocks hence neither primary nor alluvial gold surface features can be studied in
isolation without neglecting possibly vital evidence from the other. Ground