Mining platitudes in stained glass attitudes

RUST BELT research blog is so polite.  You can almost hear the tea and scones bustle as you read their introduction:  “We stared this blog after so much frustration in our own research, trying to find information from suppliers, processors, and other jewelers about their materials and methods.”

In their posting for 31 March 2008, they record an interview with Mark Logsdon.  I knew and worked with him so long ago that I forget the details–and I forgive him if he cannot recall me.  All I recall is that he is a nice, technically competent person.  Now he is President and Principal Geochemist of Geochimica.  Here are some quotes from the interview:

Gold and silver mines, that is mines that are exclusively for precious metals, tend to be quite small, and therefore short-lived.  Most silver and gold mines in Nevada that have been developed in the last 20 years will have life spans of 10 to 15 years.

The closure plan, pretty much everywhere in the world now, will have three major components.  Firstly, a physical restructuring so that all slopes are safe and stable and surfaces can be revegetated.  Secondly, a program for long-term management of water quality.  This may have to include long-term, even “perpetual” water treatment, though what this actually means is still pretty murky. 

The money going into the bond payments [for "perpetual" water treatment] earns interest, and so it is a perpetual funded source.  (Of course, assuming that the banking system survives.)

There is more along the same lines: sweet and innocent.  I leave you to decide if it is true, realistic, representative, and palliative of the frustration experienced by the bloggers in deciding if they could wear gold rings or not.