Gossans and Leached Capping; Field Assessment

Abstract

Gossans and Leached Capping; Field Assessment. Roger Taylor. Pp. 146. 2011. Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-642-22050-0. Price US$129.00. This small hardcover volume, devoted to weathered sulfide orebodies manifested in gossans and leached capping, contains concise and brief scientific descriptions of the weathering processes, accompanied by an extensive set of photographs. It is one more in the long series of pamphlets and books published by the author and his colleagues, first through the Economic Geology Research Unit at James Cook University (Townsville, Queensland Australia) and now through major publishing houses. The current volume focuses on the field recognition and interpretation of weathered ore deposits without the utilization of any of the multitude of currently available high-tech analytical tools. As the author states, it is an attempt to improve upon the seminal early books on leach capping interpretations led by Blanchard (1968), who produced the bible on leached cap interpretation. The current book focuses on observations in outcrop and through the hand lens, at scales from outcrops to hand specimen. The book contains eight chapters, including in each a concise discussion of the topic in the chapter, followed by photographic plates with adequate description such that the …