Searching gold on the ocean’s bottom

[miningmx.com] — AT THE bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, on the West Coast of South Africa, there is gold. How much is still unknown – and whether it would make economic sense to exploit it.

For that reason De Beers and AngloGold Ashanti have entered into a joint venture to search for the precious metal.

But this effort is still at a very early stage, said De Beers spokesperson Tom Tweedy. He said it was still at the exploration stage. De Beers holds the prospecting rights to exploit minerals along the West Coast.

According to a presentation by the company, rivers possibly carried the gold down to the sea millions of years ago, but the origin is still uncertain.

The challenge is how one gets to it.

Gold miners know how to break through rock and dig up the earth, but the ocean is another matter entirely.

More than a century ago diamonds were discovered along the Namibian coastline.

Initially the gems were lifted from the shallow waters, but in the 1970s De Beers embarked on deep-sea exploration along the coast of SA’s neighbour.

De Beers Marine was brought into being in 1983 and in 1990 its vessel Louis G Murray made its first “catch” of 29 000 carats.

Diamonds have since been exploited in the deep waters of Namibia and in due course exploration was also undertaken along the South African coast. Only three years ago was a start made on exploiting South African marine diamonds.

These are the skills De Beers now plans to use to look for gold. Its agreement with AngloGold is to prospect in this way either for three years or until the $40m budgeted for the project dries up – whichever comes first. In terms of the agreement AngloGold is paying for the treasure hunt.

So far geophysical exploration has taken place to investigate where drilling should take place. The drilling is expected to start next year.

Apparently the diamond company had been the one seeking a partner and AngloGold had joined it last year.

EFFORTS ELSEWHERE

The two companies are also involved in a cooperative effort near New Zealand. But there it is not rivers that are involved, but glaciers that are thought to have buried gold in the sea off South Island.

The idea of extracting gold from the ocean is not unique to companies with South African ties. A company such as Nautilus Minerals, which is listed in Canada, is doing exploration near Papua New Guinea.

The AngloGold and De Beers drilling operations will probably reveal whether there is sufficient gold or whether the $40m will ultimately be lost at sea.

– Sake24