CompuServe Messages

Hi, Bruce– Those numbers are surprising to me, with osmium and iridium concentrations greatly exceeding platinum and palladium. The Encyclopedia of Minerals lists "osmium" as occurring in only one district in Russia, though I expect to find lesser amounts wherever platinum is. I see in my atlas that Wickenburg is NW of Phoenix, ~~50miles or so. I may not know the geology, but I know there are fluorescent willemite and eucryptite from a mine in that area, so a zinc orebody and a lithium-bearing pegmatite are near at hand. Fluorescent wickenburgite from the "Rat Tail Claims" might be from that area (is that too obvious a guess to be true?), indicating lead, no surprise where zinc is found. But the platinum, gold, etc. I would think to be a placer deposit. I wonder how easy to extract those platinum metals would be. Does the "heap leaching" process used for gold work for platinum group members also, perhaps with some modification? –Doug