The Mining Biz Archives - The Urban Crows Blog

One of my bestest favouritest rocks is a ventifact (pictured below). It sat on my office desk in downtown Vancouver for the last 4 years and was terribly neglected during lock down, so I brought it home last week to make it feel loved again. It now sits under my computer screen next to a 1kg cube of tungsten metal and a small brass cock. (As an aside, the tungsten cube is unbelievably dense – the same specific gravity as gold at about 19.2).

Ventifacts are naturally polished rocks that have been shaped by wind-blown sand or ice, typically in desert environments -a process known as as “corrasion“; a new technical word for me, which just goes to show you’re never too dumb or too old to learn. They’re found in deserts all over the world from Antarctica to Egypt and have even been recognised on Mars where they’re suspected to have damaged a wheel on NASA’s Curiosity Rover. The term -which loosely translated from the Latin means something made by the wind- first appears in the literature around 1911; a British geologist coined it to describe wind-shaped rocks he saw in Africa and parts of Asia.

*Ouch. Who left that bloody ~~lego~~ ventifact there?*

Isolation

i·so·la·tion

/ˌīsəˈlāSHən/

noun: 1. “the isolation of geologists”

We’re Lonely Bastards

Every geologist has experienced extreme isolation at some point; a moment when they realise that if anything bad happens to them right then and there, they’re screwed. They may as well be on Mars because no help is coming. For most geos, isolation is a regular Saturday night thing when our one “friend” -the one that stills listens to our no-please-not-again hilarious field stories -is unexpectedly busy taking care of their incontinent senile aunt. Would you believe it? I’d love to meet up, but I have to change Auntie Mabel’s diaper. Gosh is that the time…bye…

Yobs

Soccer fans -like my mate Neil- often experience isolation at away games when they accidentally stray into the local Ultras’ bar and come face to face with 65 drunken lunatics sporting matching death head tattoos. I’ve been there. Forty years ago (gulp) on a field trip to Dorset me and 2 fellow geology students were the target of a gang of skinheads in a pub itching for a kicking; but I digress, that’s not where I’m going with this story. I was curious about the concept of loneliness and separation so I polled some industry friends of mine for their recollections of those peculiar flashes of intense isolation. Here are a few of their stories; a big thanks to everyone who told me a tale.

*Very tough geologists in Dorset looking for skinheads to chase.*

Speaking of Disasters…

How to screw up a presentation.

Stuck to a stained, gray padded seat in the speaking hall at yet another retail investment conference, the guy in front of you is falling asleep as the presentation on the main stage goes totally off the rails. It goes so badly wrong, dragging on for minute after endless tooth-achey minute, that you’re praying for lightning to strike and end the speaker’s misery. The irony is, the speaker kicked off by telling you that they’re going to present a very brief overview of what their company is up to -you know, just the highlights…the steaky sizzle…

Bad corporate presentations are a missed opportunity for companies. The weird thing is, having paid thousands of bucks for a brief 15 minutes to pump their Tier 1 project, the way some companies present you wouldn’t think they gave a damn. Apparently, Mr CEO is doing the audience a favour by mumbling incoherently for 25 minutes, 10 minutes over their allotted time, eyes cast down at the monitor screen as their complex technical slides bludgeon the audience to a slow death. There are usually dozens of companies presenting each day, so you’d think they’d maybe want to make an effort to stand out, right?

More Memories of Türkiye*

*the new official spelling of the country’s name.

High up in the mountains of northeast Türkiye -up where the borders of Georgia, Türkiye and Armenia meet- the terrane is alpine and rugged. The spectacular scenery is underlain by highly prospective volcanic rocks; the tell-tale rusty signs of possible sulphide mineralization scattered all over.

The first time I went up there I was with 2 other geologists; a pleasant, easy going Turkish chappy who I’ll call Ahmed, and an annoying German one who I’ll call Harald. Harald had strong opinions about bloody everything and wasn’t shy to share them; a stark contrast to Ahmet who was happy to be learning the exploration ropes from a couple of relatively experienced geologists. He tagged cheerfully along, breaking rocks with his hammer and chucking the better ones into sample bags for assay.

*The mountains of northeast Türkiye. Glorious spot.*

Bloody Germans

But Harald -good old Harald, every team has one- well, he was a know-it-all who always had a better way of doing things and wouldn’t let an argument die even when his aggravated British colleague was about to give him a good Schlag in the Mund. He also refused to drive the field truck (with hindsight, perhaps a good thing) which added to my workload because as the most experienced off-road driver in the group, the long drives along forestry roads fell to me. Harald aside, I was happy enough. The geology was excellent, the pay was good and the scenery even better, when you could see it through the heavy clouds that often blanket the region.

A Rocky Start in Turkey*

Turkey (*now known officially as Türkiye) -a country I know fairly well and have always loved visiting- has been on my mind recently for both good and sad reasons. I’d just finished this piece when word broke about the terrible earthquake in southeast Turkey and the awful loss of life it caused. If you can, please donate to the relief effort via the Red Cross here. And thanks to my “abi” Dave C. for the photos in this piece. For the life of me I have no idea where my photos of Turkey have gone and it’s pissing me off.

Slogging up a steep forested path in northern Türkiye, I was focused on the outcrops along the side of the path, checking for signs of mineralization. It was a dry, crisp mountain morning as my Turkish colleague and I headed on up through the woods toward the tree line, crossing creeks clogged with avalanche debris. I was feeling a bit worse for wear -still on the mend after a 2-day bout of food poisoning I picked up just after I arrived in Ankara- so the walk was a welcome distraction from the aches and pains.

*The high Pontide mountains of northeast Türkiye. Dreadful place not worth visiting. Really.*

As the new boy in the field office, I was paired with a chain-smoking experienced local geologist. He was a small chap who bore an unsettling resemblance to Hassan Al-Assad, the murderous former president of Syria and I never quite shook the feeling that I was doing field work with a moonlighting genocidal dictator. He smoked a lot -a 40 a day habit- so we were permanently shrouded in a blue cloud of Marlborough smoke which put a bit of a nicotine-scented damper on the fresh forest air. He also ate very little during the day as the nicotine suppressed his appetite. I’d have to insist we stop for lunch: me, a can of tuna and packet of Ulker-brand chocolate biscuits washed down with cherry juice from a box, and him 5 more ciggies. I’d sit there munching on oily fish, praying that he didn’t commit an atrocity while my back was turned.

*The Black Sea coast of Türkiye courtesy of the googleizer.*

How Not To Drill A Project Pt 1

I was never really one for keeping a diary; I’m fundamentally too lazy, and not nearly introspective enough to sit down every day after my sausage-and-mash supper to scribble down the day’s events. I tried once when I was working in Turkey and ended up with half a dozen pages of forced, trite, verbal garbage about an ex-girlfriend that made me cringe when I read it back a few weeks later. I binned it. With hindsight, I wish I had kept at it because this blog relies largely on my rapidly fading memories of nearly 40 years in geology and mining. It’s become a sort of “hindsight diary” reliant on my decades-old impressions rather than in-the-moment detail.

The only time I did keep a regular diary, I had no idea that I was doing it. In 1996 I was sent to Iran by Anglo American to supervise a drill program at a gold project called Zarshuran in the north of the country. It didn’t go well. A perfect storm of awful rock conditions and stunningly inept drill company management had our number before we’d even started. We were doomed but we just didn’t realise it yet. The drillers were the most comical I have ever had the misfortune to hire; their lack of talent and common sense was a wonder to behold, and the managers couldn’t be trusted to sit the right way on a toilet. We only drilled 7 holes in 3 long, ball-breaking months of drilling and those holes cost us/me a whole world of pain and frustration, yielding shitty core recoveries and not enough data to make a firm decision on the future of the project.

I faxed a routine daily drill report from our camp camp back to head office in London via a dodgy satellite phone at the camp: I had to lean out of the cabin window and press on a specific point on the antenna while it was operating otherwise it wouldn’t work, and it gave up functioning all together at sub-zero temperatures. As the late Iranian summer dragged into autumn, and we were only getting 1-2m core a day, the water pipes began to freeze overnight, and my daily reports got more and more fraught before the drilling finally ground to a halt in November as winter set it. I can only imagine how much the London team dreaded the daily chronicle of desperation spewing out of the fax machine. Happily, my boss at the time (thanks Dave) had the presence of mind to a) recognise that I was documenting my own slow decline into total lunacy, and b) to keep the daily reports and bind them together into a single document; an ad hoc diary of my misadventures which was presented to me at the office Christmas party later that year in Budapest. This piece is based on the daily faxes which I still have, 25 years later.

The Beer Quarry

Of Limestone, Quarrymen and Apple Laxative

Today’s news is all thoroughly depressing. The BBC is spouting on about the war in the Ukraine. There’s ongoing chaos on Britain’s rail network. Global warming won’t bloody go away, and -more importantly- why the fuck is Gareth Southgate still picking the human bollard Harry Maguire for England’s centre back? Good God, the misery never ends. To cap it all I was locked in a hotel in Frankfurt recently for a series of dull business meetings, sustained by a diet of luke-warm frisbee-sized schnitzel and soggy potatoes. Yum.

Small wonder then if my mind drifts back to a time when the world was gentler and kinder, and life moved more slowly, unspoiled by the daily horrors of the internet. Back to a time of golden wheat fields framed by hawthorn hedgerows, of windy cliff tops with endless azure ocean views, country villages and welcoming pubs. Yes, I’m talking last July when I spent 2 weeks hiking through the glorious English countryside with not a care in the world other than where the next Cornish pastie was coming from, and could I really smell that bad after 7 hours of walking? (A. Yes.)

Gin & Geologists Don’t Mix Well.

Most earth scientists are deeply passionate about their science, treating it as a vocation -a true calling- and not just any old degree. And they tend to feel the same way about beer, applying just as much discipline and passion to the task of finding a well-pulled pint as they do to ferreting around for a nice trilobite specimen in the local quarry. I’m not sure how it is in other countries, but in Merrie Olde England all geology students possess a mental map of the country based on 2 priorities: rocks and pubs. We know which pubs to visit in any town that’s close to an important geological location, and no college field trip is complete without at least one solid session in a well-known local watering hole.

*Geologists drinking beer (good) not gin (bad)*

In my formative high-school years, pre-geology, when we wanted to get really trashed we tended to eschew beer in favour of cheap gin or vodka. And if you’ve ever had a proper gin drunk, you’ll know that’s a really stupid teenage thing to do, inevitably ending with a couple of hours crawling-on-the-bathroom-floor-begging-for-death and then a cataclysmic hangover the next day. I vaguely remember a teenage episode involving me, my friends, and a bottle of gin, followed by a long sojourn down the side of the house, where I lay on the cold path head down in a drain, talking to myself until my parents carried me in doors.

The last shift.

My last shift working as an underground geologist wasn’t planned. It just sort of happened. In October 1987, I had 1 month left on a 3-year contract in South Africa. I was looking forward to a change of scene: 3 years in Apartheid-era Transvaal was enough and I needed to get out. I was feeling disconnected from the UK and needed a London fix. I’d already applied to the University of Alberta to enrol for a master’s degree program and the signs were good that I was heading to Canada so mentally I was checked out.

I had the first 2 months of the rest-of-my-life all planned out. Young and stupid with an interest in history, I was off on a once-in-a-lifetime five-week trip backpacking around Egypt and Israel. And then it would be back to London to hang out with my girlfriend for a few months of beer, concerts, and fun! fun! fun! But first I had to negotiate the perils of the Last Shift.

There was a lot of superstition surrounding the last underground shift. People didn’t telegraph their last one; they tended to keep it quiet. No need to tempt fate and encourage the Rockburst Gods or the Demons-who-make-shit-fall-on-your-head by blabbing about how it would all soon be over, right?

Impressions of PDAC 2022

Line Ups, Cut Outs & Simulcasts

In this brave new COVID world, the threat of infectious diseases is everywhere. So, when Father’s Day weekend came around just post-PDAC I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. I was sleeping in a partly finished bedroom, smelling slightly of ammonia, my face and hands covered with white spots. In a moment of rashness I’d told my wife -the mother of my 2 wonderful boys- I’d do anything for her so she sent me to Home Depot to buy a gallon of Pearl White Matt paint to freshen up the dreary basement bedrooms. A father’s work is never done.

PDAC is over for another year and the rigours of yet another 5 day trip to Toronto are finally behind me. It was good(ish) to get back in person to the concrete wasteland of Front Street: My colleagues and I skipped the on-line version in March 2021. Zoom fatigue was really beginning to bite so the thought of “standing” in a virtual booth for hours (which in reality meant sitting in my home office in boxers and a wrinkly shirt) waiting for e-Investors to google their way down Aisle 6 didn’t appeal.

Line Ups and More Damn Line Ups

In the week leading up to this year’s show, the Canadian press was replete with stories about the chaos at Lester Pearson airport in Toronto. Massive lines ups, lost luggage, absentee staff – CBC’s website would have us believe civilization was falling apart starting with Gate A36. Pierre Pollywotsit, the erstwhile conservative (the small c is deliberate) Prime Minister of Canada, even filmed himself striding purposefully -nay, manfully- through Lester Pearson pronouncing loudly and totally apolitically that it was the worst airport in the world. To which I can only say he’s never been to Karachi, Tehran, Newark, Leeds / Bradford, large chunks of Frankfurt airport, Manchester, Kabul and any one of a couple of hundred others. The man should get out more. Personally, I had no issues on arrival until that is we got to the baggage carousel and the de rigueur 50-minute wait for bags kicked in.

Category: The Mining Biz

My Favourite Rocks Pt. 2

Blowin’ In The Wind

(click above..you won’t be sorry)

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