GGMC developing non-invasive methods to identify new gold mining locations

The Government through the Natural Resources Ministry and the United States (US) Embassy has developed a non-invasive and predictive model for gold exploration to boost gold discoveries and ultimately increase declaration.
This project aims to identify new lands for small-scale mining across Guyana by utilising a geomorphic model that does not require geologists to go underground to determine whether or not an area of interest has gold.
The pilot was explored in Iron Mountain, South of Mabura and East of the Essequibo River after being developed from a digital elevation model, converted into a digital surface model, and then a digital terrain model.
During his address at a stakeholders’ engagement in observance of Mining Week 2024, Senior Geologist at Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), Javed Baksh explained that the model uses advanced technology to capture bird-eye view images in the forest to determine whether or not that area is a viable location for gold exploration.

This intervention he said, can scan four square kilometres at once.
“The geomorphic modeling, and I am summarising here which was two years of work in one slide, but basically, we took what regular DEM or friends at forestry will produce. Then we converted that down to the surface and identification of the sediment packages is identifying both channels and what we call paleochannels, old riverbeds which are known to be significant deposits of gold,” Baksh explained.
Further, Baksh revealed that while the pilot needs to be developed further, gold was identified in Iron Mountain as predicted.
“What happened after we released an initial phase of our model was there was mining in our area and the mining conformed exactly to our model. The miners said they found gold where our model said there was gold. And so, we had significant buy-in by those miners in that particular area.”
The senior geologist added that the technical team spearheading the project is currently working on building its capacity to accurately quantify the amount of gold that can be found in scanned areas.
He explained that this is part of efforts to support sustainable mining practices.
“We are trying to quantify it so the miner will know I get 10 ounces if I work this patch and 20 ounces if I work this patch. When times are good and the prices are significant this patch is okay or at this current time, I cannot work this patch. That’s the level we want to bring it down to at least so they can say if I process for 3 days and 3 nights, I am supposed to get this amount of gold… It still has to go through some rigorous testing,” he added.
Since 2016, gold production and declaration have seen a steady decline. For 2022, the declaration was 486,415 ounces; for 2021, it was 499,054 ounces; for 2020, it was 584,291 ounces; and for 2019, it was 634,905 ounces.
Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat, in a recent press conference, attributed these low figures to a variety of factors. For instance, he said, for the years 2020-2021, significant flooding had occurred in mining districts, severely impacting operations. In 2023 there was a prolonged drought, and this year mining districts are again being affected by flooding. In 2020, the issue was the Covid-19 pandemic.
Minister Bharrat said the government is hoping to improve production and declaration by helping small miners get better access to land.
In this regard, US company Global Venture Consulting LLC will soon undertake mineral mapping in Guyana to provide an updated record of where mineral resources can be found.
Some 700 miners are set to benefit from these initiatives.