Plums, I also felt that the main differences between the gold miners and other miners were the processes after the ore was out of the ground. If the miner was just digging the ore and running it through a concentrator before sending it to someone elses mill I guess it wouldn't matter what you were digging up, would it...

I have also followed the Ivanhoe story. I don't have any investment there, so no recommendations from me, but beyond the deposit geology the geo-political aspect is an interesting case study to show what can go wrong and how it can be overcome.