LETTER TO THE EDITOR — Salting easy to detect, preventable

A disturbing trend seems to be developing as a result of the scandals surrounding Cartaway Resources, Bre-X Minerals, Delgratia Mining and possibly Hixon Gold and Golden Rule.

Fraud or incompetence in the mining industry are old stories, but the time span between such scandals used to be greater — a Windfall, New Cinch Uranium, Tapin Copper or Dessir Resources came along every few years. At the current rate these scandals are surfacing, the mining industry will lose the tremendous momentum it has gained in the past two years.

There are three basic truths about salting, of which everyone in the exploration industry should be aware, and which haven’t changed since man discovered the value of gold.

Salting is easy to do. Gold can be added to outcrops, samples, drill core or at any stage of the assay process. Placer gold or flotation concentrates, filings and toner solutions available at any photographic supply store all can be used to increase gold content.

Second, salting is also easy to detect, especially by geologists in the field. With the exception of some Carlin-Type deposits, almost all gold deposits give some visual indication of the presence of mineralization. The comparison of sample descriptions (or drill core and cutting logs) with laboratory results will quickly uncover most salting attempts.

Most salting is perpetrated by amateurs who overdo it, and resultant high grades cannot be reasonably explained, which should raise red flags. In addition, the perpetrators need access to the material they intend to salt, and anybody who is overly interested in spending time, unsupervised, with samples should also arouse suspicion.

The final truth is that salting is easy to prevent. Years ago, geologists took many more precautions than are the norm today. At one time, geologists were not permitted to sample any exposure until a fresh face had been prepared.

Good management practices can deter most salting attempts. From the top of the management ladder on down, the integrity of samples and data should be paramount.

A “chain of custody” should be established on any site. Samples should be secured at the end of each day, and shipped to the lab on a timely basis. As most companies are in a hurry for the results, undue delays in transit would be detected. Sending duplicate samples, not duplicate pulps or rejects, as well as blank samples to different labs is an important control over fraud in the assay process.

All this, as well as the constant comparison of sample descriptions and the assay values received, will create an atmosphere in which a successful salting operation would be highly unlikely.

As far as assaying procedures, remember that there has never been a mine that produced gold where it was not possible to get an approximation of the gold content using traditional fire assays.

Furthermore, recent scandals all have one thing in common: the promotion of the company was handled by someone with a technical background, such as a geologist, engineer or geophysicist.

The financial community had great confidence in these promoters as a result of their background, but if the people with technical expertise are doing the promoting, who’s looking after the work program and the integrity of the results?

These two duties are mutually exclusive and cannot be done by one person.

Geoscientists and engineers can make excellent promoters, but I suspect that there would be fewer scandals if promoters delegated competent geoscientists and engineers to conduct exploration programs and take responsibility for the integrity of those results.

David Griffith, P. Geo.

Cuernavaca, Mexico