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Originally Posted by homefire
Cool!
I was reading some place that they were working on a bacterial leaching system some place too.
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Hi homefire,
You are right. A lot of money was spent on biological research by mining companies. They are definitely studying bacterial leaching to extract metals from excavated dirt and rocks. But much larger amounts have been spent by government agencies who want to clean up toxic wastes. This is where the research really started. Scientists discovered these bacteria and other microbes that survive in toxic environments actually thrive on metals and other minerals that are considered non-digestible. These microbes derive their life energy from the chemical digestion of gold and other metals, while producing toxic metal salts in the process. Yet they don't die. In fact they multiply.
Governments want to exploit similar microbes that neutralise toxic wastes in order to clean up toxins that find their way ground water and soil, so they will convert them to harmless compounds. They even have microbes that like a radioactive environment, and derive some of their energy from decaying atoms they ingest. These are being studied to clean up nuclear wastes. There is a lot of interesting reading about this online. But for our purposes, we only need to focus on what can be smelled at the surface to lead us to the treasure.
As a side note, there is an instrument called "Sniffex" which is an electronic sensor for smelling chemicals in the air. It is an ingenious invention that can be more sensitive than a dog for detecting faint aromas in the air. But do not confuse the Sniffex with the fake "dowsing rod" style sniffex. What's interesting is the Sniffex instrument can be built fairly cheap in quantity. And if the specific airborne molecules you are trying to smell are known, then you can manufacture the Sniffex to identify them. Be sure to check my links to the sniffex in the post I made here:
http://www.geotech1.com/forums/showp...1&postcount=20
Getting ideas?
Best wishes,
J_P