ARTICLES_3

Hydro-Scopic™ mining is specifically designed around the use of a sonic drilling rig modified into a sonic mining rig.   It is a process conceptualized to be more efficient, efficacious and profitable in target production (i.e. more bang for the buck) when compared to traditional methods, especially regarding deep placer recovery.   It uses attachable apparatus that operates to separate lighter slurry material from heavier (i.e. denser) slurry material underground, where it creates an expanding mining cavity using pressurized water jets.  The process also incorporates two slurry recovery systems (through the same single drilled borehole), which extracts lighter gravel components via the annulus (between rod string and casing) back to the surface while allowing heavy elements to concentrate in a sump gold trap at the bottom of the cavity for recovery using a sonic core barrel.  The Hydro-Scopic™ mining ‘hydraulic circuit’ allows water to be recycled for re-jetting after it is cleaned in a surface processor where “lighter” gold, platinum and other slurry components can be separated from the water.  This borehole mining system can work as a relatively closed mining system.  The hydraulic mechanics of Hydro-Scopic™ mining, facilitated by acoustic energy, can be fundamentally compared to and has elements analogous to a human circulatory system.

A Hydro-Scopic™ mining “circulatory system” is formed conceptually using a moderately high pressure/high volume pump (i.e. heart) that functions to establish a baseline system’s static pressure, similar to the diastolic pressure (or lower number) displayed by a blood pressure monitor, but in the order of 1000psi with 400 gals/min of re-circulated jetted water that is pumped down into the ground.  Additionally, an energizing wave-pulsing component (i.e. heart pumping action) is integrated into the system using the oscillating head of a sonic drill rig that increases the static pressure using wave pulses, like the higher systolic number displayed by a blood pressure monitor.  Similar to an arterial vessel, an elastic rod string that is attached to a sonic drill head is inserted into a borehole (e.g. 4 inch diameter) where at its lower end (functional at hundreds of feet deep) a water-jetting apparatus pulses out bolts of clean water that disintegrate a mineral deposit thereby forming a mining cavity filled with slurry (solution of dirty water and gravel).  Energy is transferred from the pump and the sonic drill’s oscillating head into energized bolts of jetted water for mining work (i.e. heart pumping).  The function of excavation transforms clean pressurized water (i.e. arterial blood) into dynamic and turbulent less pressurized slurry (i.e. venous blood) containing gold and gravel (e.g. carbon dioxide). Water, having spent its jetting energy in excavation, is then pushed up (by hydraulic pressure differential) to the surface as slurry that carries lighter (i.e. less dense) suspended gravel through the annular space between the pulsing rods and a static casing structure — similar to venous blood returning to the heart, aided by patented eductor couplings in the annulus (i.e. venous valves).  The water is cleaned on the surface and reused (e.g. lungs, kidneys). Heavy elements, like big nuggets, that cannot be lifted remain in the cavity (e.g. kidney stones and gall bladder stones) for later recovery using a specialized core barrel extraction method (i.e. surgery).  Slurry circulates through a surface processor (e.g. liver, kidneys, lungs) where gravel and “suspended/floating” fine gold and other precious metals are separated from the water; the water is clean/filtered and is re-circulated again for jetting work underground with the process repeating itself — similar to blood’s cyclic process of being cleaned, renewed and reused.