Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mine
Encyclopedia
The Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mine, formerly and historically Cresson Mine, is a gold mine located near the town of Victor
, in the Cripple Creek
mining district in the US state of Colorado
. It is the largest current producer of gold in Colorado. It is fully owned and operated by AngloGold Ashanti
through its subsidiary, the Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mining Company, CC&V.
The mine is an open pit
operation. The gold is recovered from the ore by heap leaching
. CC&V's heap leach pad is one of the biggest in the world.
ted volcanic
and volcanoclastic rocks of Oligocene
age and predominantly quartz latite
composition. The Cripple Creek volcanic complex is surrounded by Precambrian
gneiss
, granite
, and quartz monzonite
. The gold occurs as disseminated micrometre-size free gold and as gold-silver telluride
s. Gangue
minerals include pyrite
, quartz
, and fluorite
.
Warren, Harry & Frank Woods entered the Victor mining scene in when they purchased the Mount Rosa Placer and incorporated the Mt. Rosa Mining, Milling and Land Company Jan. 9, 1892. This would later become known as the Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mine.
The current open cut operation dates back to 1995. The operation became part of AngloGold in March 1999, when the company acquired the Independence Mining Company and thereby 66% of the mine. AngloGold merged with junior partner Golden Cycle Gold Corporation in 2008 and thereby acquired the remaining 33% of the project.
The mine is a low-cost, low-yield open pit operation, with grades well below one gram of gold per tonne of ore. In recent years, 2008 and 2009, the mine accounted for 5% of AngloGold Ashanti's world wide production. It is the company's only active operation in the United States. In 2008, the State of Colorado and Teller County granted the mine a mine-life extension.
Production and grade of the mine have steadily declined over the last few years, while the total production costs have risen from US$ 372 an ounce in 2007 to US$ 475 in 2009. The mine employed 562 people in 2009, of which 367 were permanent employees.
Victor, Colorado
Victor is a Statutory City in Teller County, Colorado, United States. The population was 445 at the 2000 census.Victor is in the heart of Colorado's gold country, home to two of the major gold mines in the Cripple Creek mining district...
, in the Cripple Creek
Cripple Creek, Colorado
The City of Cripple Creek is a Statutory City that is the county seat of Teller County, Colorado, United States. Cripple Creek is a former gold mining camp located southwest of Colorado Springs near the base of Pikes Peak. The Cripple Creek Historic District, which received National Historic...
mining district in the US state of Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
. It is the largest current producer of gold in Colorado. It is fully owned and operated by AngloGold Ashanti
AngloGold Ashanti
AngloGold Ashanti Limited is a global gold mining company. It was formed in 2004 by the merger of AngloGold and the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation.AngloGold Ashanti Limited is now a global gold producer with 21 operations on four continents...
through its subsidiary, the Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mining Company, CC&V.
The mine is an open pit
Open-pit mining
Open-pit mining or opencast mining refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow....
operation. The gold is recovered from the ore by heap leaching
Heap leaching
Heap leaching is an industrial mining process to extract precious metals, copper, uranium, and other compounds from ore.The process has ancient origins; one of the classical methods for the manufacture of copperas was to heap up iron pyrite and collect the leachate from the heap, which was then...
. CC&V's heap leach pad is one of the biggest in the world.
Geology
The ore is in altered and brecciaBreccia
Breccia is a rock composed of broken fragments of minerals or rock cemented together by a fine-grained matrix, that can be either similar to or different from the composition of the fragments....
ted volcanic
Volcanic rock
Volcanic rock is a rock formed from magma erupted from a volcano. In other words, it is an igneous rock of volcanic origin...
and volcanoclastic rocks of Oligocene
Oligocene
The Oligocene is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 34 million to 23 million years before the present . As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the period are slightly...
age and predominantly quartz latite
Quartz latite
A quartz latite is a volcanic rock or fine grained intrusive rock equivalent to a latite with a phenocryst modal composition containing 5-20% quartz. Above 20% quartz, the rock would be classified as a rhyolite. It is the fine grained equivalent of a quartz monzonite containing approximately equal...
composition. The Cripple Creek volcanic complex is surrounded by Precambrian
Precambrian
The Precambrian is the name which describes the large span of time in Earth's history before the current Phanerozoic Eon, and is a Supereon divided into several eons of the geologic time scale...
gneiss
Gneiss
Gneiss is a common and widely distributed type of rock formed by high-grade regional metamorphic processes from pre-existing formations that were originally either igneous or sedimentary rocks.-Etymology:...
, granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
, and quartz monzonite
Quartz monzonite
Quartz monzonite is an intrusive igneous rock that has an approximately equal proportion of orthoclase and plagioclase feldspars. The plagioclase is typically intermediate to sodic in composition, andesine to oligoclase. Quartz is present in significant amounts. Biotite and/or hornblende...
. The gold occurs as disseminated micrometre-size free gold and as gold-silver telluride
Telluride (chemistry)
The telluride ion is Te2−. It is the final stable member of the series of dianions O2−, S2−, and Se2− ....
s. Gangue
Gangue
In mining, gangue is the commercially worthless material that surrounds, or is closely mixed with, a wanted mineral in an ore deposit. The separation of mineral from gangue is known as mineral processing, mineral dressing or ore dressing and it is a necessary and often significant aspect of mining...
minerals include pyrite
Pyrite
The mineral pyrite, or iron pyrite, is an iron sulfide with the formula FeS2. This mineral's metallic luster and pale-to-normal, brass-yellow hue have earned it the nickname fool's gold because of its resemblance to gold...
, quartz
Quartz
Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...
, and fluorite
Fluorite
Fluorite is a halide mineral composed of calcium fluoride, CaF2. It is an isometric mineral with a cubic habit, though octahedral and more complex isometric forms are not uncommon...
.
History
Gold mining in the district begun in the 1890s, mostly as underground operations, chasing high grade veins. Over 23 million ounces of gold have been recovered from the district since 1890.Warren, Harry & Frank Woods entered the Victor mining scene in when they purchased the Mount Rosa Placer and incorporated the Mt. Rosa Mining, Milling and Land Company Jan. 9, 1892. This would later become known as the Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mine.
The current open cut operation dates back to 1995. The operation became part of AngloGold in March 1999, when the company acquired the Independence Mining Company and thereby 66% of the mine. AngloGold merged with junior partner Golden Cycle Gold Corporation in 2008 and thereby acquired the remaining 33% of the project.
The mine is a low-cost, low-yield open pit operation, with grades well below one gram of gold per tonne of ore. In recent years, 2008 and 2009, the mine accounted for 5% of AngloGold Ashanti's world wide production. It is the company's only active operation in the United States. In 2008, the State of Colorado and Teller County granted the mine a mine-life extension.
Production and grade of the mine have steadily declined over the last few years, while the total production costs have risen from US$ 372 an ounce in 2007 to US$ 475 in 2009. The mine employed 562 people in 2009, of which 367 were permanent employees.
Production
Past production figures since 1995 were:| Year | Production | Grade | Cost per ounce | |
| 1995 | 76,587 ounces | |||
| 1996 | 174,600 ounces | |||
| 1997 | 228,164 ounces | |||
| 1998 | 230,300 ounces | |||
| 1999 | 231,000 ounces | |||
| 2000 | 248,000 ounces | |||
| 2001 | 214,010 ounces | |||
| 2002 | 224,988 ounces | |||
| 2003 | 283,866 ounces | 0.67 g/t | US$ United States dollar The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies.... 199 |
|
| 2004 | 329,030 ounces | 0.61 g/t | US$ 220 | |
| 2005 | 329,625 ounces | 0.62 g/t | US$ 230 | |
| 2006 | 283,486 ounces | 0.54 g/t | US$ 248 | |
| 2007 | 282,000 ounces | 0.53 g/t | US$ 269 | |
| 2008 | 258,000 ounces | 0.49 g/t | US$ 309 | |
| 2009 | 218,000 ounces | 0.46 g/t | US$ 376 | |
| 2010 | 235,000 ounces |