Going for the gold.

• Author: Wendt, Ron
• Position: Alaska miners use new gold mining techniques

New mining technology and methods can be literally worth their weight in gold for Alaska miners. Every year, innovative new devices are put to use in the attempt to extract that extra nugget or recover another hundred ounces of gold from the ground.

To date, over 32 million ounces of gold have been recovered from Alaska mines. But gold is where you find it, and modern miners are looking to technology to search deeper and faster and process their mining operations more efficiently.

The old sourdoughs would hardly recognize the business today. For example, during the 1898 Klondike gold rush, miners used shotgun barrels as a steampoint for thawing frozen mining ground and wood fires to melt frozen gold bearing gravels.

Mining tools now range from metal detectors to large trommels and shaker plants to separate gold and gravel. Miners near Fairbanks have recently experimented with the Hydro-Laser. Although used in construction, the Hydro-Laser is new to mining. It produces a6 small, pinpoint stream of water under high pressure which cuts through permafrost like a razor and can carve out blocks of frozen dirt in a matter of hours.

Paul Dionne, an underground miner in the Wiseman area, uses a metal detector on bedrock throughout his network of tunnels. He has had some phenomenal results, including a 22-ounce nugget. Dionne also stockpiles paydirt from his tunnels during the winter and uses a metal detector one last time to make sure none of the metal is missed.

Further south near Fairbanks, placer miner Don May operates Polar Mining, the third largest gold operation in Alaska, and he's always on the lookout for productive ways to mine.

"It's a matter of economics," May says. "We have to find ways to make mining economically feasible."

May and his son converted a excavator into a fast rig to drill into bedrock to find a paystreak on mining ground he works at Goldstream and Fish Creek near Fairbanks.

"Out of necessity, we developed our own drilling rig. It's fast and efficient, and certainly is a lot faster than anything commercial," says May.

May's rig can drill 100 to 140 exploratory holes in eight hours. On his Goldstream operation, May must drill down 70 to 75 feet, while on Fish Creek drilling to bedrock is 55 feet.

By comparison, miners using cable-driven churn drills 30 years ago could bore about 20 holes a day at 14 feet per hole to bedrock. The drills were mounted on a ore sled called a stone boat, and dragged by a tractor-like vehicle...