IN THE NEWS
MAJOR DIAMOND DEPOSIT FOUND AT BAFFIN ISLAND
Sept., 2009. Peregrine diamond company made a major diamond discovery on their Chidliak project on Baffin Island in Canada. A bulk sample sample returned 6.3 ct/tonne! with one half of the sample returning 10.5 ct/tonne! As a comparison, most commercial kimberlites and lamproites yield average grades of 0.15 to 6.8 ct/tonne. The incredibly rich Argyle diamond mine in northern Australia mined ore for many years that averaged 6.8 ct/tonne.
LARGE DIAMOND FOUND
September, 2009. The great Premier Diamond Mine of South Africa has been a source of many large diamonds in the past. The mine was established in 1902 and soon produced many diamonds including the largest ever found. The mine lies 25 miles east of Pretoria and was renamed the Cullinun Mine in 2003.
Recently, another large diamond was found at the Premier (Cullinun) Mine. This diamond is nearly flawless & will pay the bills of operation of the Cullinan Mine for at least two years. This latest discovery was a diamond the size of a hen’s egg - a white diamond of 507.55 carats. The diamond was found on September 24th 2009 and estimated to be worth $20 million uncut. This suggests that faceted stones produced from this giant diamond could reach values of 10+ times that of the rough stone.
Largest gem-quality rough diamonds discovered in the world
Name | Country of discovery | Year of discovery | Carat Weight | Position |
Cullinan | South Africa | 1905 | 3,106 | 1 |
Excelsior | South Africa | 1893 | 995 | 2 |
Star of Sierra Leone | Sierra Leone | 1972 | 969.80 | 3 |
Incomparable | Zaire | 1984 | 890 | 4 |
Great Mogul | India | 1650 | 787 | 5 |
Millennium Star | Zaire | 1990 | 777 | 6 |
Woyie River | Sierra Leone | 1945 | 770 | 7 |
Golden Jubilee | South Africa | 1985 | 755 | 8 |
President Vargas | Brazil | 1938 | 726.60 | 9 |
Jonker | South Africa | 1934 | 726 | 10 |
Jubilee-Reitz | South Africa | 1895 | 650.80 | 11 |
Unnamed | South Africa | 1984 | 620.14 | 12 |
Sefadu | Sierra Leone | 1970 | 620 | 13 |
Kimberley Octahedral | South Africa |
| 616 | 14 |
Lesotho Promise | Lesotho | 2006 | 603 | 15 |
Centenary | South Africa | 1986 | 599 | 16 |
De Grisogono | Central Africa |
| 587 | 17 |
| Unnamed | South Africa | 2009 | 507 | 18 |
Jacob-Victoria | Ssouth Africa | 1884 | 457.50 | 19 |
Zale light of peace | Sierra Leone | 1969 | 435 | 20 |
De Beers | South Africa | 1888 | 428.50 | 21 |
Niarchos | South Africa | 1954 | 426.50 | 22 |
GEOLOGIST NOMINATED FOR NATIONAL AWARDS
October, 2009. Crawing through abandoned mines, finding gold, diamonds, colored gemstones & a Rattlesnake den filled with hundreds of angry snakes. There were times he sang with coyotes, howling at the moon to drown out his fury neighbors - living in a tent & rarely seeing other two-legged critters for entire summers. Off to Alaska to search for gold in the mosquito infested mountains; Canada and Australia to inspect some new diamond discoveries & back to Wyoming where he found several hundred mineral deposits & anomalies, identified minerals unknown to Wyoming, mapping >1000 square kilometers of complex geology & finding gemstones weighing more than a ton. And writing >650 papers & books & speaking to 400 groups and more.
W. Dan Hausel has been presented >100 awards for his work that brought Wyoming from a precious metal & gem-poor state to one of the more endowed states in metals and gemstones - simply because he dared to look & question others. For all of his contributions, he was never presented any award from the State or Geological Survey that benefited the most. According to Hausel, it doesn't really matter, these are bureaucrats who live in their own little world.
Other groups and organizations around the world continue to acknowledge his accomplishments. This year, Hausel has received several national and international nominations for awards that he will unfortunately have to turn down due to the cost of travel.
He did accept nomination for 2009 and 2010 Who’s Who in the World and 2009 Who’s Who in America & the Thayer Lindsley Award for his contribution in discovery of the Donlin Creek gold deposit in Alaska. And at the Juko Kai national clinic in Dallas, he was presented the Honor Award ‘One Who Points the Way’ (in addition to geology, this polymath takes martial arts seriously).
As for other awards, Hausel says, "I'm humbled by nominations for so many other awards this year, but I cannot consider these because of travel and other expenses". He has been nominated for: Action Martial Arts Magazine’s Hall of Honors (Outstanding Contributions to Martial Arts), International Einstein Award for Scientific Achievement, Magna Cum Laude, 100 Top Scientists of the World, 2009 Man of the Year, American Order of Merit for Personal Achievement & Hall of Fame for Distinguished Accomplishments.
LARGE GOLD DEPOSIT DISCOVERED
June 23, 2009. A major gold deposit was discovered in Alaska thanks to 7 geologists. One, W. Dan Hausel, a geological consultant from Arizona, specializes in finding mineral deposits. Possibly no one has found as many. Over the past 30 years, Hausel discovered a variety of colored gemstones, diamonds, precious & base metals deposits & specialized in detailed geological mapping of complex Archean (>2.5 billion years old) greenstone belts, kimberlite and lamproite fields, gold districts and Archean supercrustal terrains. Some of his discoveies include the Rattlesnake Hills gold district, the Puzzler Hill Pd-Pt-Au-Ni deposit, dozens of diamond deposits and at least three world-class colored gemstone deposits which yielded the two largest iolite (water sapphire) gems ever found – the Palmer Canyon Star (1,750 ct) & Grizzly Creek Blue Giant (24,150 ct) & several ruby deposits. One iolite deposit may host 2.7 trillion carats of the gemstone.
Hausel discovered gold, diamonds, kimberlites, lamproites, silver, palladium, nickel, iolite, rubies, sapphires, peridot, garnet, Cape Ruby, opal, Cape Emerald, agate & jasper. He mapped all of the greenstone belts in Wyoming (Copper Mountain, Rattlesnake Hills, Seminoe Mountains, South Pass & assisted with Elmers Rock), mapped the two largest diamond-bearing kimberlite districts in the US & the largest lamproite field in North America (these are primary host rocks for diamond). He was the first person to recognize the significance of the Cedar Rim opal field near Riverton (where he found opals >70,000 cts) that had been overlooked by US Geological Survey in the early part of the 20th century & may be the largest opal deposit in North America.
Although he never received any awards from the WGS for his extraordinary contributions, he was recognized by dozens of national & international organizations. For his accomplishments, he received >100 national & international awards including: Top 2000 Scientists of 2008-09, 2000 Outstanding Scientists of the 20th Century, 21st Century Achievement Award in Science, Archimedes’s Award for Geological Sciences, Wyoming Geological Association Distinguished Service Award, UW Department of Geology Distinguished Lecturer, AAPG's President’s Award, Prospector’s Best Friend Award, 1995 Man of Year, 1996 International Man of the Year, Most Admired Man of the Decade, nominated for International Einstein Award for Scientific Achievement, Great Minds of the 21st Century Award, twice nominated for the Dibble Mapping Award, inducted into Who’s Who in the West, Who’s Who in Science & Engineering, Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World, nominated for Hall of Fame for Distinguished Accomplishments. He is a member of 15 Halls of Fame including Millennium Hall of Fame & is the only known Wyomingite to be inducted into the National Rock Hound & Lapidary Hall of Fame.
In 2009, he was recognized for another accomplishment. In the late 1980s, he was hired as a consultant for WestGold Exploration to map & explore the Kuskokwim Mountains, Alaska, because of his ability to produce detailed geological maps & see things others overlook. He, along with a group of six other distinguished geologists, made a major gold discovery at Donlin Creek. The Northern Miner (May, 2009) reported that Donlin Creek is one of the largest untapped gold deposits in the world. Based on proven and probable reserves, Donlin Creek contains 29.3 million ounces of gold (>$30 billion) (equivalent to 70% of the gold mined during the 100+ year history of the Homestake mine). For their discovery of Donlin Creek Gold deposit, the team was presented the most prestigious award for an international mineral discovery. Richard Garnet accepted the Thayer Lindsley Award at the PDAC in Canada on March 2nd, 2009 for the group. Unfortunately, 2 of the 7 have since passed on. The award was presented to Mark Bronston, Richard Garnett, Paul Graff, Dan Hausel, Bruce Hickok, Toni Hinderman & Robert Retherford and engraved in Diorite.
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Part of the WestGold discovery crew - Rob Retherford (standing left), Dr. Paul Graff (standing right) & Dan Hausel (sitting right) - 1988.
Above - Dr. Paul Graff examines old 'Giant' at Fullerton, Alaska, from a gold era bygone. Dan Hausel stands on hill overlooking Snow Gulch, Alaska (1988) & recent PDAC Award for a major International Mineral Discovery.
GOLD DISTRICT FOUND IN WYOMING In 1981, W. Dan Hausel looked at the Rattlesnake Hills (RSH) west of Casper. It was a Archean greenstone belt with great auriferous source rocks and had the added attraction of being intruded & brecciated by >40 alkalic plugs & dikes. It was a no brainer for gold but for some reason, no one had ever looked. So Hausel went to the field & found a gold anomaly his first day in the field (the Lost Muffler). Almost each time he went out, he found additional anomalies in exhalites, veins, faults, stockworks, breccias & in alkalic Tertiary rocks. This resulted in at least two separate gold rushes. American Copper & Nickel, Bald Mountain Mining, Newmont Mining, Canyon Resources & some consultants staked claims in the region. After drilling one property, Newmont & Canyon Resources may have accidentally found a gold deposit with >1 million ounces but they dropped the property. Recently, Evolving Gold examined this property near Sandy & Goat Mountains. One hole drilled by Evolving Gold hit a mineralized zone averaging 10.8 grams over 67 meters & 184 meters of 4 grams including the lower grade halo. The company's stock doubled. Another company staked claims on the edge of the discovery (Endurance Gold) and they had a run on their stock that tripled. The geology of Wyoming is similar to many gold rich terrains in Australia, Canada, South Africa & Zimbabwe in that it is underlain by an old Archean craton (continental core) with some greenstone belts. In other parts of the world, ‘greenstone belt’ and ‘gold belt’ are synonymous. Even so, Hausel could get little support from the Wyoming Geological Survey (WGS), so he spent some of his own money & invested a lot of personal time exploring these terrains while living in a tent to sample & map these belts. It paid off, he discovered significant gold in the Rattlesnake Hills, Seminoe Mountains, and South Pass greenstone belts that resulted in several claim staking rushes. Hausel believes that all three host significant gold deposits. Based on geology, the RSH is intruded by several Tertiary volcanics which provided an excellent environment for gold. When greenstone belts formed >2.5 billion years ago, they were basins that filled with volcanic & sedimentary material with above normal gold content. Thus these basins already had a good source for gold, all that was necessary was to mobilize the gold & focus the metal in mineral deposits Hausel investigated this region and found significant gold and started a rush in 1982. With a minimal budget he identified several dozen significant gold anomalies & mapped the 50 square mile greenstone belt. As a result of his discoveries, this area will likely lead to development of one or more gold mines.
