Following the news that one of Aberdeenshire’s smallest and most rural hamlets could be the centre of a multi-billion pound gold-mining operation, we’ve decided to look at how such operations work in the modern age.
Koza Altin Isletmeleri has joined forces with a Muir of Ord-based firm to start prospecting for deposits on a site near Towie, which they think could be sitting on huge amounts of the precious metal.
The news was met with a mixed reaction from locals in the area last week.
Koza, which is controlled by Turkish businessman Hamdi Akin Ipek, is working with GreenOre Gold, which has been working on the site for the last two years.
GreenOre managing director Gavin Berkenheger, a 31-year-old Aberdeen University geology graduate, said the farmland site was part of the same geological “supergroup” as the massive Curraghinalt gold deposit in Northern Ireland.
The Dalradian supergroup – thought to have formed more than 500million years ago – runs from Northern Ireland in a north-easterly direction up through Aberdeenshire.
Canadian mining firm, Dalradian Resources, has estimated the gold-laden site in Co Tyrone contains more than 3.5million ounces of gold that it plans to exploit over the next four years.
Below is a video and pictures showing the kind of operations the company undergoes in some of their other gold mines.
GreenOre already has a licence from the Crown Estate to search for gold in the Towie area, the burns around which are well-known to contain gold grains.
Gold was discovered by Aberdeen University in nearby Rhynie in the 1990s.
And Irish mining firm, Navan Resources, looked for gold in the area between 1990-92.
The video below – showing potential gold prospectors taking to a river in Aberdeenshire to pan for gold – conjures images of the US Gold Rush of the 1800s.