Bringing Silver Mines from the Old West into the 21st Century

In 1876 two prospectors, John Brannaman and George Scott, discovered a vein of silver in the mountains of Arizona. Soon more veins were found and a town called Pioneer grew up around the rich silver strike. Fortunes were made for a few years as they mined the silver ores near the surface.

Then at about 200 feet deep a tragedy struck—zinc. As the mining went deeper, more and more zinc was in the ore. Why was this a problem? Because in the 1880s zinc was extremely difficult to separate out from silver ore. Miners couldn't get the zinc out of the concentrates, and smelters flat out rejected concentrates with high zinc. By the mid-1880s the silver mine was killed by too much zinc, and Pioneer became a ghost town.

Today, 150 years later, the world has changed. First, we have new ore treatment processes—a technique called differential flotation makes zinc/silver ores easy to treat. And second, what was once a curse is now a valuable asset. Not only is zinc valuable in today's world, but it is now listed by the US Government as a critical mineral—essential for national security. In fact both silver and zinc are now listed as critical minerals.

Silver Strike is shining light on John and George's forgotten discovery. Maybe you can help us prove out this historic silver zinc deposit—and maybe together we can make America's critical mineral supply a little more secure.