Book Review- World Gold 2011

The following review has kindly been submitted by Prof. Fathi Habashi of Laval University, Canada.

The present volume is the Proceedings of the 50th Conference of Metallurgists held on October 2-5, 2011 in Montreal. Participated in the organisation of this conference are the following: Hydrometallurgy Section of the Metallurgy and Materials Society, the Geological Society, the Maintenance and Engineering Society, the Management and Economics Society, the Society for Rock Engineering, the surface Mining Society, the Canadian Mineral Processors Society of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and the South Africa Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.

The book covers four sectors of the industry: mineral processing, environment, mining, and geology. Mineral processing represents 70% of the book, as follows :

[1] Mineral Processing – Hydrometallurgy - Pyrometallurgy

• Mineralogy of Precious Metals (8 papers)
• Plant Practice and Projects (3 papers)
• Refractory Ores (5 papers)
• Gravity Recovery (3 papers)
• Technological Developments / Cyanide (4 papers)
• None Cyanide Lixiviants (6 papers)
• Comminution / Concentration (5 papers)
• New Concepts ( 8 papers)
• Fundamentals ( 6 papers)
• Preg-robbing / Recovery (4 papers)

[2] Environment ( 5 papers)

[3] Mining

• Strategic Mine Planning (7 papers)
• General Mining, Maintenance and Engineering ( 2 papers)

[4] Geology (9 papers)

I am puzzled that the term “Preg-robbing” is still surviving in the scientific literature although it is non-scientific and definitely should be replaced by, for example, “adsorption losses”. Other than that the book is very well produced and contains a wealth of information that is very useful for the practicing engineer, for researchers, and for students.

World Gold 2011, edited by G. Deschênes, R. Dimitrakopoulos, and J. Bouchard, xvi + 915 pages, 18 x 26 cm, hard cover, ISBN: 978-1-926872-03-2, published by Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum.