Mining exploration activity: moving toward final permitting.

• Author: Stricker, Julie
• Position: SPECIAL EDITION: MINING

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Viewing Alaska from a geologist's perspective, there is certainly "gold in them thar hills," as well as copper and silver and a host of other valuable metals. There are also bears, mosquitoes, crummy weather and miles and miles of hills, mountains and muskeg that contain little to no mineral deposits.

Separating the areas that have abundant minerals from those with few, while avoiding the hazards of exploration in Alaska, has attracted legions of prospectors for decades--and 2012 was no exception.

The prizes can be significant. Despite well more than a century of active mining and exploration in the 49th State, geologists are still finding world-class deposits of gold, copper, silver, coal and a host of other minerals.

For example, the Pebble prospect located in Southwest Alaska about 200 miles from Anchorage contains one of the largest concentrations of copper, gold, molybdenum and silver in the world.

It wasn't discovered until the mid-1980s. Other significant mineral deposits are thought to lie in the Alaska Range, around Nome and in the Ambler region of Northwest Alaska. Exploration is ongoing around known mineral areas, such as Livengood and Pogo Mine in Interior Alaska.

And then there's the newest gold rush, hundreds of would-be prospectors spurred along by a combination of reality television and high gold prices.

Applications for placer, section and hard rock exploration have nearly doubled in the past two years, according Jeff Rogers, a Fairbanks-based geologist with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.

"We've been busy, busy beavers," Rogers says of the past few months. "With all the paper pushing and field visits, we didn't sleep much."

All of Alaska's mining districts saw a rise in the number of applicants and in general activity, says Rogers, who saw more than his share of bears, mosquitoes and bad weather this summer.

A lot of the activity occurred in Nome, where people flocked to find their fortune on Nome's fabled beaches, chronicled in TV shows like "Bering Sea Gold." "Nome went nuts," Rogers says.

The Fortymile region was also busy. Rogers says that while some people were clearly out to make money, more were in it just for the thrill of finding gold.

Rogers said he doesn't see much of a change for 2013, as long as metals prices remain high. If anything, the craziness in Nome might calm down. "A lot of people suffered" in 2012, he says. "The weather was bad. The barge was late. The ocean really isn't carpeted in gold. This summer had to be a reality check for a lot of people."

It's not just gold driving exploration in Alaska.

The Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys within the Department of Natural Resources is in the middle of a three-year, $3 million effort to map mineral deposits in Alaska. Geologists are working on a detailed map of strategic minerals, including rare earth elements that are increasingly used in high-tech manufacturing. In 2012, the survey concentrated on the Moran area in the Ray Mountains north of Fairbanks.

Mineral exploration in 2011 alone accounted for $300 million in spending, according to a study commissioned by the Alaska Miners Association and the Council of Alaska Producers. That figure is up 13 percent from 2010.

Alaska's geology and current high mineral prices are two of the reasons exploration activity has remained active in the state, according to Tom Crafford, large mine...