Typical open cut grades
Gold is generally extracted in open-pit mines at 1 to 2 ppm (grams per ton) but in certain cases, 0.75ppm gold is economical. This was achieved by bulk heap leaching at Alkane Minerals Ltd. Peak Hill mine in western New South Wales, near Dubbo, Australia.
Nickel, generally as laterite, is extracted via open-pit down to 0.2%.
Copper is extracted at grades as low as 0.15% to 0.2%, generally in massive open-pit mines inChile, where the size of the resources and favorable metallurgy allows economies of scale.
Materials typically extracted from open-pit mines include:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-pit_mining
We not only have Copper and Nickel but also PGM.
So far over 300M tons of PAY DIRT!!
AND
For those that may think the mineralization is to deep...
And 2 minutes of a HUGE mine in Canada.
