Major Gem & Other Mineral Deposits - some thoughts

Faceted iolite, ruby and pink sapphire from Palmer Canyon.

The US and Wyoming have abundant natural resources (including gemstones) that are not being developed. For instance, in Montana and Wyoming there is a world-class copper-silver-gold porphyry province that is comparable to those in Arizona. This region also has enormous potential to produce gold and silver deposits from veins and replacement deposits, and it doesn't end there. There are also known resources in lead, zinc, titanium and molybdenum.

One must wonder what the US and State governments are thinking? In one year, any administration could turn this country around and provide unlimited resources, jobs and revenue. There is something mentally wrong with anyone who runs for office - they have to have all wires crossed and want to control our citizens, just for the sake of controlling us.

If government would just work for the people instead of against the people, life would be so much better. We need to GET RID OF ridiculous regulations, duplicate regulations, and get rid of all of the needless agencies, and we could again become the greatest nation in the world. We have some of the hardest working  and innovative people if only they can get assistance from bureaucrats.

The Absaroka Volcanic Range in northwestern
Wyoming and southern Montana.

Getting back to mineral resources, Ask yourself, would I be better off having a nice walking trail I could use with 30 other people a year to see grizzly bears periodically carrying off some environmentalist, or would I be better off having a robust economy, with thousands of new jobs, materials, and products made in the USA and just as many trails with grizzly bears? The answer should be easy, but apparently not to the elite who control us. What I am getting at is there are hundreds of regions in the US that contain incredible resources and have been locked up only to keep the taxpayer out. The Absaroka Volcanic Range skirts the eastern edge of Yellowstone hosts a major porphyry copper-silver-gold province that has been piecemeal withdrawn to protect Yellowstone (even though Yellowstone is larger than some states), the most caustic geological environment at the surface of the earth, and the streams in the mineralized areas in the Absaroka Mountains drain away from Yellowstone. So, government is not protecting Yellowstone, it is just stopping mining.

An example of one of the many mineral deposits found in
the Absaroka terrain. This is from the Kirwin district where
many vein samples were rich in silver and some assayed more
than 100 ounces per ton in silver.

As an example, the Kirwin in the southern portion of the Absaroka Mountains has at least one known large porphyry copper-silver-gold-molybdenum-lead-zinc-titanium deposit that contains more than a $billion in identified resources that were drilled and trenched in the late 1970s by AMAX. This property was quickly withdrawn as soon as AMAX dropped their interest in developing an open pit and underground mines. This happened to mineral porphyry after porphyry in this range and culminated with the Clinton Administration taking the New World gold deposit from a mining company.

If mining and exploration were allowed in this highly mineralized region, many other deposits would have been found by now in the Absaroka Mountains, but this will never happen unless we accidentally get in a congress and president who are genuinely interested in representing the people.

Another of many examples are the colored gemstone deposits in Wyoming. When these were discovered, one would assume there would have been interest in developing these - after all, just one of the iolite gemstone deposits has potential to produce a considerable amount of money. But as soon as the discovery was announced about this and other gemstone, diamond and gold deposits it was almost as if the State did not want anyone to know about these. What are they hiding?

Another district that was dismantled over many years by the Forest Service was the Encampment district in southeastern Wyoming. Conoco Minerals made several  discoveries of zinc-copper-lead-silver volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits in this region. Deposits with some similarities to the great Jerome massive sulfides in Arizona. Every time this company, or any other came into this region to exercise their rights to explore and file mining claims on claimable public land, the Forest Service was alerted to possible economic deposits. Region after region was piecemeal withdrawn by the FS in both the Sierra Madre and in the Medicine Bow Mountains to keep anyone from economic development. And these are just a few examples and there is considerably more mineralization in these regions including significant gold, platinum, palladium, chromium, titanium, nickel, vanadium and iron mineralization.

We recently watched a program on TV about what's under America hosted by Martin Sheen. This was a good program that began to tell a story about all of America's resources. But it didn't tell the story of how government is keeping it away from us. There are many resources in this country and we will not run out if we mine and produce them.