A mining and mineral symposium at Montana Tech, Butte, Mont., attracted geologists and mineralogists as presenters and people from as far as Washington, California and Idaho as well as Montana as attendees, according to the Montana Standard.
The Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology 2016 Mining and Mineral Symposium was held at the Copper Lounge in the Student Union Building.
Speakers included:
- Montana Tech professor Chris Gammons, who presented a study of the Calvert Tungsten Mine in the Pioneer Mountains.
- Mark Thompson, Montana Resources’ manager of environmental affairs, who spoke on the future of MR’s permitting.
- David Odt, Golden Sunlight Mine chief geologist, who gave an overview from on the geology and mineralization on mine north of Whitehall.
- Montana’s current – and possibly future – economic advantage lies with rock mining, said Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) geochemist Garrett Smith in a presentation to about 40 people. Ordinary rocks are the predominant mining commodity for the state. Rock quarries and rock picking take up nearly half of the land permits for mining, DEQ said.
Smith said potential exists for rock mining to be a growth industry for southwest Montana. With a number of small-scale sand and gravel pits between Butte and Dillon and between Butte and Bozeman, the industry already has a foothold, he stated.