Cypriot miners look to gold

Press, 27 November 1986, Page 9

Cypriot miners look to gold

NZPA-ReuterKalavassos, Cyprus The 4000-year-old mining industry of Cyprus, which supplied copper to the ancient world, is now looking to gold to stem its decline. I Historians say Cyprus was at its richest about 1300 B.C. when it traded copper for gold. Now prospects for copper are grim but experts say what . is left of the island’s gold I can be mined economically. “The mining future of Cyprus may be in gold," said a mining engineer, Constantine Xydas. Other experts estimate the island could produce up to 600 kg of pure gold, worth nearly $2O million at present prices, a year. Gold prices began to shoot up last month, initially boosted by fears that South Africa, which supplies half the world’s gold, might be tempted to curtail supplies if hit by further economic sanctions. The rise later gained momentum as investors, fearful of a world economic crisis, bought gold — a traditional investment haven in times of economic turbulence. Gold mines were

worked in Cyprus in the 19305, extracting a specific type of ore called Devil’s Mud with a very high gold concentration of up to 150 grams a tonne. “When that was exhausted, perhaps also for marketing reasons, the mines stopped operating. But low-grade deposits of gold can be extracted economically with existing technology,” Mr Xydas said. A resurgence in the gold market could be good news for the abandoned gold strip-mine of Kalavassos, which lies alongside ancient galleries where miners searched for copper. With low world prices and slack demand, only one copper mine is still working, exporting 910 tonnes of copper last year, compared with 10 in operation 12 years ago. Mining now contributes a mere 0.7 per cent to the gross domestic product, bringing in only $l3 million last year compared with $5OO million from tourism. Mineral exports primarily copper — have declined from more than 60 per cent of total exports in the early 1960 s to 2.9

per cent last year. Experts say lack of investment inhibits the exploitation of the island’s mineral deposits. Copper mining has been further hampered by depletion of high-yielding ores. “The ancients always stopped digging when the water table in their mines rose since they had no pumps,” said George Constantinou, director of the State Geological Survey Department. “If they hadn’t had this problem, they wouldn’t have left us any copper ore at all.” Mr Xydas said: “We haven’t found any copper ore deposits the ancients had not first discovered. Modern miners, thinking they had found a new ore body, would drill away only to hit on an ancient gallery.” About 2000 B.C, Cyprus became one of the world’s earliest producers of copper. “Usable copper was just lying around in the pine forests,” said Mr Constantinou. “This was the only way someone who didn’t know about it could learn to use it. Once the surface metal was exhausted the an-

cients started digging, he said.” Though most of Cyprus’s early mines have been destroyed by modern mining methods, the slag heaps they left behind provide clues to environmental destruction and an energy crisis in the ancient world. Mr Constantinou estimated that ancient miners extracted about 200,000 tonnes of copper alone over a period of 2500 years. He said “People have underestimated the amount of energy the ancients needed. We think that environmental damage has been with us only in the last few years.” Copper smelting left behind over four million tonnes of slag and he estimated that for smelting alone, the island’s pine forests, which provided the charcoal, must have been destroyed at least 16 times. Experts think that good rainfall, high acidity and iron content in the volcanic soil made it possible for the forests to be renewed in 50 to 80 years, keeping the mining industry alive for centuries.