Precious metals occur in the long-developed region Lesozavodski near the village of Turgenevo. According to geologists, the concentration of platinum is very high - from 4 to 52 grammes, gold up to 30 grammes per tonne of rock. (Development of a placer begins at 1.5 grammes of precious metal per tonne. One kilogramme of gold on the world market costs over 12,000 dollars.)
Remarkably, the placer has been discovered theoretically. A routine way was uphill: gold is finely dispersed and platinum sits in the graphite crystal lattice.
"At first, the deposit was opened as graphite. Analyses showed it to be gold, an open-cast mine to be worked by bulldozers. Before nanotechnologies appeared, such discoveries were out of the question. Now, such fields are called 21th-century fields world-wide", Academician Valentin Sergienko says.
True volume of the field can only be spoken of upon geological survey.
Another thing is important: looking for precious metals, geologists applied novel methods of obtaining geological information and the latest analytical approach.
Primorie is the oldest gold-producing region in Russia's Far East: gold was washed here 200-300 and even 500 years ago.
Geological materials show that actually the entire region is "golden".
According to the natural resources committee of the administration of the Primorie region, it has 64 placers and one ore-gold field totalling 21 tonnes of gold. The outlook for development of the gold-producing industry is linked to tapping the prognosticated reserves of ore gold, which are 25 more than the prospected reserves' total.
Investors have long been attracted by the glitter of the Primorie gold. Representatives of actually every gold-producing major have been in Primorie this year - Barrick Gold, BHP, Anglo Gold etc. Anglo Gold has shown strong interest in the Turgenevo field.
