The Sukhoi Log is one of the largest
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
reserves in
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
and in the world
The reserve is located in
Irkutsk Oblast
Irkutsk Oblast (russian: Ирку́тская о́бласть, Irkutskaya oblast; bua, Эрхүү можо, Erkhüü mojo) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in southeastern Siberia in the basins of the Angara, Lena, and Nizh ...
and has estimated reserves of 64 million oz of
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
,
but has a low grade.
Mining endeavours
During the 1990s a proposal was made to mine Sukhoi Log by the semi-private Russian company Lenzoloto with the
British Virgin Islands
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company Star Technology Systems (previously known as Green Applied Systems Limited).
Funds toward the venture were raised from the
Australian Stock Exchange company Star Mining (previously known as Central Mining Corporation, now Argonaut Resources).
Various legal, bureaucratic and political problems delayed progress.
Sukhoi Log was the subject of a special hearing held by the State Duma's Security Committee under the watchful gaze of hardline communist
Viktor Ilyukhin
Viktor Ivanovich Ilyukhin (russian: Ви́ктор Ива́нович Илю́хин; 1 March 1949, Sosnovka, Penza Oblast – 19 March 2011, Kratovo, Moscow Oblast) was a Russian State Duma deputy, member of the Communist Party of the Russian F ...
to investigate threats to Russia's national security from this "shadowy" Australian company.
The Australian company wrote off $127 million on the failed venture after Russian courts overturned decisions by Russian politicians.
Formation of the gold deposit
The majority of gold was imputed during diagenesis and early metamorphism. After the majority of the gold input was finished, many large scale tectonic and geological events have occurred. Such event ages obtained by the monazite, Rb–Sr, and paleomagnetic studies. During these events the gold was likely remobilized and other ore minerals (e.g. pyrite) formed to create the present day state of Sukhoi Log. A summary of the known ages and events is given in Hnatishin and Kravchinsky (2014)
[Hnatyshin, D. and Kravchinsky, V.A., 2014. Paleomagnetic dating: Methods, MATLAB software, example. Tectonophysics, 630, 103-112, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tecto.2014.05.013.]
See also
*
List of mines in Russia
This list of mines in Russia is subsidiary to the list of mines article and lists working, defunct and future mines in the country organized by primary mineral output. For practical reasons, this list also contains stone, marble and other quarrie ...
References
Polyus (company)
Gold mines in Russia
Gold mines in the Soviet Union
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