The four pictures below show scenes from our three-day trip on horseback up the Pachuy River canyon. The portrait of Miguel, our guide, and Michael's horse show the upper pastures of the Pachuy Valley. From here we were only a few thousand feet below the Andes crest and the border with Argentina. The second image shows a road cut by Barrick's exploration team to access the Valeriano project, another potential mine site in this lucrative gold belt. The final shot shows the same road a few thousand feet higher. The mountains in the background will become an open-pit mine if Barrick's Pachuy project moves forward. Miguel has seen encampments of exploration teams and heavy machinery in this valley.
Basically, if the wildest dreams of Barrick and Xstrata, a Swiss company exploring the Morro mine area, come true, every major upper watershed basin in the Transito Valley will have a mine.
Remember, at most, 5 grams of gold per ton of moved mountain. The average blueberry weighs over 2 grams. That's two blueberries of gold for a ton of mountain. If that makes you look twice at your gold bracelet, go to www.nodirtygold.org and look for retailers that sell recycled or scrap gold. www.brilliantearth.com is one such source.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment