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During the final days of 2014 Canada's minister of the environment gave the green light to Seabridge Gold's KSM project in northern British Columbia, the world's largest undeveloped gold-copper project by reserves. The federal and provincial environmental assessment process took nearly seven-years and KSM was only the second metal mine in five years to receive approval. A new preliminary economic impact study released by Toronto-based Seabridge on Thursday, the already ambitious project takes another leap forward. During the first seven years of operation annual gold output would top 1 million ounces According to a statement, Seabridge now envisages a much...

A new study is further burnishing copper’s reputation as an essential nutrient for human physiology. A research team led by a scientist at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and at UC Berkeley has found that copper plays a key role in metabolizing fat. Long prized as a malleable, conductive metal used in cookware, electronics, jewelry and plumbing, copper has been gaining increasing attention over the past decade for its role in certain biological functions. It has been known that copper is needed to form red blood cells, absorb iron, develop connective tissue and support the...

Bronze tools found in Sweden dating from 3,600 years ago were made using copper from the Mediterranean, archaeologists have shown. They now also believe that rock carvings of ships found in Bohuslan, Sweden were visual documentation of trade between ancient Scandinavia and the Mediterranean. Most of the copper circulating in Bronze Age Europe apparently originated from Sicily, Sardinia, the Iberian peninsula - and Cyprus, going by isotope analysis... The precious copper was exchanged for Nordic amber, which was as cherished as gold in Mycenaean Greece and in the prehistoric Middle East... The ancient Cypriot copper industry produced relatively pure stuff,...

Excavations at Idalion, Cyprus: Crossing Cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean 8 p.m. JCCGW Theatre 6125 Montrose Road Rockville, MD Ann-Marie Knoblauch | Virginia Tech University Co-Sponsored by the Hellenic Society Prometheas Cyprus was an important trade center and cultural ‘crossroad’ in antiquity, controlled and influenced in different periods by the Mycenaean civilization, the sea-faring Phoenicians and Philistines of the Bible, Archaic Greece, the Persians in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Roman Empire, and even Christian Byzantium. The ancient site of Idalion is fortuitously situated near the copper-rich mountains of Cyprus and the harbors of the coast.  This prime location led to the...

The ancient copper mines in Timna are located deep in Israel's Arava Valley and are believed by some to be the site of King Solomon's mines... The tiny pieces of fabric, some only 5 x 5 centimeters in size, vary in color, weaving technique and ornamentation. "Some of these fabrics resemble textiles only known from the Roman era," said Dr. Orit Shamir... The archaeologists also recently discovered thousands of seeds of the Biblical "Seven Species"... the two grains and five fruits considered unique products of the Land of Israel. Some of the seeds were subjected to radiocarbon dating, providing robust...

According to a Tel Aviv University team of archeologists who studied the ancient Negev park, the mining activity at the site was at its height during the 10th century B.C.E., under the rule of kings David and Solomon. This essentially debunks the long-standing theory, devised almost 50 years ago, that the mines, used for the extraction of copper, were actually under the control of the ancient Egyptians. The discovery was made possible thanks to carbon-14 dating, a technology that was not available when the site was first explored. ... The Tel Aviv team used 11 short-lived samples -- 10 date...

About 60 drawings and hieroglyphic inscriptions, dating back around 5,000 years, have been discovered at a site called Wadi Ameyra in Egypt’s Sinai Desert. Carved in stone they were created by mining expeditions sent out by early Egyptian pharaohs archaeologists say. They reveal new information on the early pharaohs. For instance, one inscription the researchers found tells of a queen named Neith-Hotep who ruled Egypt 5,000 years ago as regent to a young pharaoh named Djer. Archaeologists estimate that the earliest carvings at Wadi Ameyra date back around 5,200 years, while the most recent date to the reign of a...

The Baltic Dry hit a new all-time low of 490 on Friday. Again, it’s the same problem as with the commodities: projects of all kinds – oil fields, mines, ships, ports – that were initiated early in the decade to take advantage of anticipated growing Chinese demand, are now coming on-line just as Chinese demand is faltering, leading to global over-capacity, over-supply and a glut of just about everything. It is an ingredient of the recession recipe. A "recession" is the painful process where excessive capacity and supply are cleared from the market.

Remains of a long dead house mouse have been found in the wreck of a Bronze Age royal ship. That makes it the earliest rodent stowaway ever recorded, and proof of how house mice spread around the world. Archaeologist Thomas Cucchi of the University of Durham, UK, identified a fragment of a mouse jaw in sediment from a ship that sank 3500 years ago off the coast of Turkey. The cargo of ebony, ivory, silver and gold - including a gold scarab with the name of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti - indicates it was a royal vessel. Because the cargo...

The coasts of Anatolia are sprinkled with ancient cities whose harbours bustled with ships engaged in the thriving sea trade of the Aegean and Mediterranean. But not every ship made it safely to harbour. Many were wrecked in storms and sank with their cargoes to the seabed, and the remains of these have lain hidden on the seabed for long centuries. Wrecks of both merchant and warships each have their historical tale to relate, and are among the underwater sights that fascinate divers today. No other region of the world is so rich in sunken history as the seas around...

The last time anyone touched the artifacts Elizabeth Greene is after, Rome was a new empire and climate change had just pushed the Scandinavians into Europe... The unexplored wreck sank between 700 and 450 BC. For Greene, who has assisted in a handful of shipwreck dives, it will also be the first in which she takes the lead... A trade hub in ancient times for Greece and Turkey, the Mediterranean has thousands of ancient shipwrecks, "more than we'll ever be able to excavate," Greene said. They are so old that most of the actual ships are gone, eaten by underwater...

An ancient voyage in just two months Thursday, March 29, 2007ÖMER ERBİL A replica of the oldest known shipwreck, Uluburun II, was built by the 360 Degree Historical Research Association in Urla, İzmir and displayed in Bodrum as part of activities marking the 80th anniversary of Sabotage Day in July. Journey from Foça to Marseille.. A group, who built the replica of ships used by old Foça people 2,600 year ago, will set to sail next year. The voyage will last two months. The 360 Degree Research Group, which had built the replica of the oldest known shipwreck, Uluburun II,...

The Uluburun II, which is on display in Bodrum and sponsored by the Bodrum Peninsula Promotion Foundation started to be built in 2004 using late Bronze Age techniques and was launched in 2005... The [original] Uluburun sank in the 14th century 8.5 kilometers southeast of Kafl in Uluburun Bay while carrying copper and tin from Alexandria to Crete. It was discovered in 1982 by a diver. The remains of the shipwreck were unearthed by an excavation team consisting of archaeologists and divers and the process has lasted over 20 years. Considered to be one of the most significant archaeological finds...

In 1983 a sponge diver found funny metal biscuits with ears at the ocean floor. That is how the excavation got started, Hirschfeld said. The ship carried ten tons of copper ingots, which after being analyzed, were determined to be from Cyprus. Each ingot weighs approximately 60 pounds, she said. She and her team also excavated glass ingots, tons of tin, and three Italian swords that were not part of the cargo of the ship. Among the 130 Canaanite jars they found, there were traces of wine in the jars and one was full of glass beads. The team also...

Ancient furnace sparks archaeological interest A UNIQUE site in the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean and expected to shed more light on ancient copper mining has been uncovered in the Mathiatis area, about 20km south of Nicosia. It consists of the base of a copper smelting furnace with its last charge of slag still in place. The discovery was made by students participating in an educational research programme in cooperation with Inter Community School Cyprus Project 2005, under the direction of Dr Walter Fasnacht. The participants from the staff of the Department of Antiquities were G. Georgiou, archaeologist, and E...

...Why do the Greek descendants of the Minoans share a gene in their DNA with the Chippewas and no one else on the planet? In November of 1896, near the town of Newberry, Michigan. In Michigan's Upper Peninsula two woodsmen clearing land on a farm uprooted a tree and discovered three statues, and a clay tablet. The tablet was 19 by 26 inches in size. 140 small squares were cut into the stone. In each square a letter or character. The University of Michigan and the Smithsonian Institution were notified. Both of these institutions, at the time refused to look...

Silver King Mine (1875-1920) In 1873, a soldier named Sullivan, who had been involved in the construction of the road that had become the main route between the Globe area and valleys of the Salt and Gila rivers was returning to camp one evening, when he found several heavy, black nuggets of metallic material near the base of Stoneman’s Grade (Short et al, 1943). Although he had little knowledge of minerals, he figured that he must have found something unusual. He kept the black nuggets and returned to camp without saying any- thing about his discovery to the other soldiers....

Sol_Palha November 23,2015 Doctor copper, can no longer be viewed as a leading indicator, in fact, a name change might be in order. A change of name from Dr Copper to deadbeat copper might in order, given its dismal record over the years. After the financial crisis of 2008-2009, the economy, the stock markets and copper parted ways; while the markets and the economy trended higher, copper plunged into an abyss, and it is still trying to find its footing. All Jokes aside, the reason copper is diverging from the markets is because the Feds destroyed the concept of a...

Greg McKennaNovember 23, 2015 It’s an ugly day on industrial commodity markets in Asia today with some big falls in crude oil, copper, zinc, and Chinese rebar steel. At the moment Nymex crude for January delivery is down 2.74% to $40.75 a barrel, Brent crude is down 1.75% to $43.87 a barrel, Copper in US trade has fallen 2% to another six-year low of $2.01 a pound, but it is down 3.74% in Shanghai. Zinc in Shanghai is down 1.03%, and rebar steel on the Shanghai exchange is off 3.35%. Interestingly even against this back drop Gold still can’t find...

Tyler Durden 11/16/2015 Shanghai Copper is down 4.6%, hitting fresh cycle lows not seen since March 2009. No clear catalyst is evident for now aside from stronger USDollar, Codelco's cuts, and more chatter of CCFD unwinds. If COMEX Copper holds these losses, it will be down for 10 straight days - the longest on record from what we could tell. Copper is crashing in China... (snip)