Russian Gold: An Overview

A HISTORICAL OUTLINE

Considering the ancient origins of man's obsession with gold, Russia's gold mining industry developed extremely late, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Mediterranean were heavily mined for gold long before the time of Christ, whereas Russia found no gold until relatively recently. Even if one takes into account that Russia is much younger than the aforementioned civilizations, the absence of any gold production at all is startling. This was not for lack of trying. Every ruler of Russia was interested in finding gold to back up the monetary system and help finance the state. As early as 1488 Ivan III invited foreign specialists to explore and mine for it. His successors never stopped such efforts. Ivan the Terrible brought in masters from Italy. Peter the Great went so far as to sign a decree that stated: "Anyone disposed is free to search, dig, melt, and refine metals of any kind, be it gold, silver, or copper, with no limitations of place to search and mine, irrespective of the land ownership."

The "Big Triangle"

The Big Triangle, weighing 36 kilograms, is the largest gold nugget ever found in Russia. It was dug out from a hole 3 meters deep on 27 October 1842 at the Miass state-owned placer mine on the Tashkurganka River. On this occasion General Major Anosov reported to General Glinka, the chief supervisor of the Uralian mines, "This nugget was found by a foreman of the Miass mines, Nikifor Syutkin. In compliance with Article 1773, volume VII of the Law Code he is due to be paid, as calculated, 15 kopecks per zolotnik grams, a total of 1266 rubles and 60 kopecks. In as much as no such findings occurred previously, I feel obliged to ask for permission from Your Excellency for reimbursement of such a reward" (Danilevsky 1959). Syutkin became a habitual drunkard and died in poverty.

Despite such efforts, Russia produced no gold of its own until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Miners knew that gold was intergrown with other minerals, but they had no way to extricate it. In 1714, while working in the Nerchinsk mines in the Transbaikal, Ivan Mokeyev, an accomplished assayer and expert on metallurgy, developed methods for reclaiming gold as a byproduct of smelting silver ore. His method proved to be efficient, and Russia initiated badly needed gold production of its own. It began with modest amounts in pounds but eventually grew into tons.

The next discovery of the noble metal occurred in the Altai at the Kolyvan-Voznesensk mines, where A. Demidov mined copper from sulfide base-metal ore. Wilhelm I. Gennin, a chief supervisor of the Olonets (now Karelia) and Uralian mines, also played an important role. During his inspection of Demidov's mines he noticed that ore from some Altai mines, especially Zmeinogorsk, was very similar to that from Nerchinsk, and he suggested that these carried gold and silver. Analyses proved him right, and shortly thereafter gold and silver mined in the Altai began replenishing the Russian treasury. By the middle of the eighteenth century the Altai became the major gold-producing area of Russia, a position it retained until the early nineteenth century, when Uralian gold came to the fore. The output of gold from the Altai was about 300-400 kilograms per year, peaking at 600-700 kilograms per year in 1770-74. However, by the end of the eighteenth century the gold mines in the Altai were almost entirely exhausted. The ?gold there was never more than a byproduct extracted from copper and silver ore.

Figure 2. Postcard showing government workers looking for gold, ca. 1910. John Taylor postcard.

Figure 3. Postcard views of mining in the Urals, ca. 1910. Left, at the gold mines; right, at the platinum mines. John Taylor postcard.

Figure 4. Postcard view of Russian citizens (nongovernment workers) looking for gold in river sand, ca. 1910. John Taylor postcard.

Attempts were made to mine gold in northern Russia, near the village of Voitsa in the Vyg River basin, where gold occurred in a quartz vein and was frequently visible to the naked eye. However, this vein was not large, and during its production (1745-68) it yielded only around 60 kilograms of gold.

Uralian Gold

The Ural Mountains dominate the next stage of Russian gold history. Ironically, despite the intense efforts of so many professionals with support from the Russian government, a peasant named Yerofey Markov discovered gold in the Urals.

The chief management bureau of productive enterprises reported the following:

Figure 4. Postcard view of Russian citizens (nongovernment workers) looking for gold in river sand, ca. 1910. John Taylor postcard.

Figure 5. Postcard showing gold mining in Siberia using American techniques, ca. 1910. John Taylor postcard.

On May 21, 1745, Markov, the old believer, observed some light- colored crystal-like stones at the roadside between the villages of Stanovaya and Pyshma. To get stones of better quality he dug a hole about his own height deep. He found a little plate-like stone resembling chert containing . . . a grain of something that looks like gold; there were three or four such grains in each stone, but he does not remember for sure how much in total.

This discovery almost cost Markov his life. Follow-up investigations failed to confirm the presence of gold, so he was suspected of trying to hide the true site of his discovery. He was scheduled to be tortured but was finally released. An exploratory pit dug a couple of years later at the place Markov reported tapped into a gold vein 3 meters deep!

Called Beryozovskoe (referred to as "Beresovsk near Ekaterinburg" in Dana), it is a classic quartz-gold deposit and one of the largest lode gold deposits in Russia (it now lies within the administrative borders of the Sverdlovsk region). During the next five years, 150 ore zones were found within the Beryozovskoe gold field, and more than ten mines were developed. Mining continues there today, and the deposit remains among the largest in Russia. An obelisk has been erected at an ancient dump heap at the very first mine, and the inscription reads: "Thanks to the discovery by Yerofey Markov, a peasant, the first Russian gold mine was launched here."

Discoveries of gold deposits along the eastern slope of the Urals followed at Gora Blagodat, Miass, Nev'yansk, Kasli, Kyshtym, Ufaley, Nizhny Tagil, Bilimbay, and Revda. However, Uralian gold never yielded easily. Extremely hard surrounding stone, frequent flooding, and thick boggy woods were among the many obstacles that made gold mining a tough and expensive business in the Urals. Nevertheless, production of Uralian mines grew quickly, and the area became one of the top gold-producing regions of Russia.

Seven decades later, placer gold was finally found in the Urals. Lev I. Brusnitsyn, a mining engineer from the Beryozovskoe mines, accomplished this milestone, which he described in his account years later in an 1864 edition of the Gornyi Zhurnal (Mining Journal). The advantages of placer mining immediately became evident: Gold extracted from placers was five times cheaper than that from the lode. Brusnitsyn's finding opened the epoch of placer mining in Russia. The state heavily pushed gold miners toward it; a special governmental decree even authorized free placer gold prospecting and mining.

Thus, exploration and mining progressed quickly, and dozens of placer discoveries were made. By 1822 as many as forty-one placer fields had been found in the Urals alone. Some placer discoveries were even made in the European part of the country. Others were made in the center of Russia, near Tver and Vladimir, but the gold content here was far too low to merit serious mining. In 1823 Alexander I created the Provisional Mining Commission, which was charged with the development of the "mining of solid gold ore and loose gold sand over the area of the Urals and its branches, along with the search for the easiest ways to produce as much gold as cheaply as possible." In 1825 the aforementioned Gornyi Zhurnal, a specialized scientific and practical periodical, was first published. It contained descriptions of every aspect of gold mining, not only in Russia, but also in California, Australia, and South Africa. The journal provided wide coverage of new mining methods and techniques.

Prospectors moved farther and farther beyond the Urals into Siberia. During 1827-30 gold placers were discovered near Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Minusinsk and a little later near Achinsk. In 1829 the company of Ryazanov, Kazantsev, and Balandin found an unusually rich gold placer at Kundus-tryul'sky Creek. In 1836 G. Makarov, a leader of the team financed by Ryazanov, discovered another rich placer near Minusinsk. In 1838 placers were found in the Uderei River (the Niznyaya Tunguska River basin). Further exploration focused on the Yenisei Valley, where unbelievably rich placers were found. These areas became flooded with people who rushed from everywhere in Russia, much like the later gold rushes in California and Alaska. More than 20 tons of gold were mined in Siberia alone during the single year of 1847! Placer mines multiplied all over Siberia, each employing as many as 150 persons.

The search for gold placers in the Transbaikal was also a success. In 1843 placers were discovered in the Verkhneudinsk area. And prospectors didn't neglect the historical gold mining places (e.g., east Transbaikal). Many placers were found adjoining already known ore deposits: About 340 kilograms of placer gold were extracted near Nerchinsk in 1845, and the figure grew to 400 kilograms in 1849. In 1853 a famous Shakhtama placer was found that increased the local gold production to as high as 2,800 kilograms per year.

The "gold march" into eastern Siberia in 1846 established the first placer mines in the Lena River Valley, Spassky, and Voskresensky. During the 1860s the first placers were prospected along the Bodaibo and Bodaibokan rivers in the Vitim basin. Gold diggers located their winter camp in what is now modern Bodaibo, the famous east Siberian gold mining center. Gold mining and logistic companies became concentrated there.

In the Bodaibo area many placers occurred as deep as 60 meters, so only relatively large companies could mine them. Individual diggers frequently went bankrupt or sold their patches and sought their luck in the surrounding taiga (wild forest). This resulted in placers being found in the Engadzhimo, Olekma, Malyi, and Bolshoy Patom river valleys.

Active placer exploration in the Amur River basin began in the 1870s. As before, it was a challenging task due to the severe climate, absence of any roads, rugged mountains, and dense taiga. The primitive equipment of the pioneering period made it even more difficult. A pick, a spade, a wheelbarrow, and a primitive sluice box, although not very productive, were the essential prospector's tools.

Initially, during the period when high-grade placers were mined, the digger cooperatives (artel' in Russian) managed to produce up to 15 tons of gold annually. However, such placers became exhausted very quickly, and diggers did not have the equipment or money to mine deeper layers. As a result they either went bankrupt or sold their shares to larger companies.

In the 1860s Russian gold diggers reached the Pacific coast. The entire territory of the Amur River basin was prospected and mined for gold, including Amur Bay, where marine placers were discovered.

A total of 2,800 tons of gold were produced in Russia between 1752 and 1917. This was about 12.5 percent of the total world production. Placers produced the greatest proportion of this amount. By the middle of the nineteenth century Russia was a world leader in gold production. However, the discovery of gold in California, Australia, and South Africa decreased the proportion of Russian gold from 35 percent in 1840 to 13 percent in 1855. Table 1 presents more details.

Table 1. Percentage of the Russian annual gold share of the total world production.

During the nineteenth century, gold production developed into a distinct branch of the mining industry. This period gave rise to numerous advances in the art of mining. Thousands of mining engineers, foremen, and savvy, self-taught prospectors participated, among them E. Cherepanov, E. Kitaev, N. Koshkarov, P. Anosov, and L. Brusnitsyn.

Mokeyev's invention of the method for "dry" separation of gold from silver in 1718 was not the only important advancement that Russia gave the world. In 1844 P. Bagration, a Russian engineer, first introduced the cyanation method, still widely used today in gold extraction-forty-three years before it was patented by specialists from Scotland.

Growth in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Judged by the technical level of the equipment used, the Russian gold industry at the beginning of the twentieth century was roughly equivalent to that in Australia and South Africa. Diamond drilling bits were used in prospecting, and thermal ore processing allowed winter panning in placer mines (Mezhelovsky and Smyslov 2001).

Hydropower stations constructed at placer mines supplied the electrical energy not only for industrial processes but also for the surrounding settlements. In 1910 forty state-of-the-art dredges worked at Siberian placers. By 1914 the average annual gold production exceeded 60 tons, about 10 percent of the world total.

In 1896 the Lena Gold Mining Company (Lenzoloto) was founded. According to the contract of 4 January 1909, Lena Gold Fields, a British company, bought 67,319 shares of Lenzoloto, and the latter produced about one-sixth of the Russian gold recovered. The dividends to British shareholders were about 20 percent per year. However, the labor conditions remained extremely severe, and because of this, in 1912, a strike occurred. The owners lost about 6 million rubles, whereas 1 million rubles would have been enough to meet the workers' demands. The Lenzoloto owners decided to compensate for their losses by speculating on the stock exchange. When minor shareholders came to know about the unrest at the Lena mines, they started to dump what they owned, and the company bought their shares at a bargain rate. However, as soon as work at the mines resumed, the state price rose. Lena Gold Fields not only compensated for its losses but also made significant gains. The Russian government was the real loser, both economically and politically.

Russian gold has always been attractive to foreign countries. Numerous exploration teams from Britain, Germany, and Belgium worked in the Asian part of Russia. During the single day of 7 April 1907, five different foreign teams were working out of Irkutsk. Among them were American businessmen intending to buy famous placers in the Amur basin.

Manpower has always been a serious problem for the gold- producing industry in Siberia. To keep them employed in agriculture, local people in the Amur basin were officially prohibited from working at the gold mines. As a result, entrepreneurs were forced to employ workers from China. The Chinese came in groups of 100-150 to the Russian bank of the Amur River and contracted to work as gold miners. These people, with some support of foreign capital, then organized gold smuggling. An owner usually rented his mine out to a Chinese "crew" to get his preconditioned share, and it was better for him to close his eyes to what was going on than risk losing the entire operation for a chance at more profit. Russian gold was smuggled to China and then to Singapore, where refining occurred. From Singapore the gold bullion was shipped to Europe. The Amur basin placers produced about 8 tons of gold annually; of these just 3 tons were registered officially. The rest was smuggled.

In 1913-14 hundreds of German gold buyers, supported by German banks, invaded even the most remote parts of Siberia and bought gold directly at placer mines.

The Soviet Period

Revolution and civil war brought the Russian gold mining industry to the verge of total collapse. In 1917 Russia produced 28 tons of gold, whereas the figure for 1920 was only 2.5 tons! The industry required a thorough overhaul. Disorganization paralyzed the recently nationalized major mines, but the smaller producers were also in disarray, and smuggling prospered.

The national gold reserve of Russia suffered much during this period. In 1915 it was as large as 1,338 tons (despite the recently lost war with Japan, and the outbreak of World War I), whereas by 1920 it was only 317 tons. About 300 tons were shipped to Germany under the terms of the Brest Peace Treaty, but the rest was lost as a result of the civil war. Parts of the reserve changed hands from the Bolsheviks to the White Guard and back. Of the 700 lost tons, about half were stolen or carried away to Manchuria by the retreating White Guards.

One means of restoring the gold-producing industry was to attract foreign investments. In 1925 Lena Gold Fields obtained a thirty- year concession for the Lena placer mines. The treaty lasted only five years, but the result was encouraging. By 1928 annual gold production in Russia had increased to 28 tons. The enhanced treasury, however, was not sufficient to solve the government's most pressing problems. The Soviets needed to restructure and modernize the entire industrial complex, army, and bureaucracy, as well as develop new areas of the country, and a good proportion of the necessary equipment and materials was imported. Therefore, significant material and human resources were pressed into gold prospecting and mining.

During the 1920s two new giant gold provinces were discovered in the far northeast. In 1923 a prospecting team headed by V. Burtin was sent to the Aldan River basin to check fragmentary data on the gold findings there. They found a rich placer in the Ortasala Valley (Nezametnyi Creek). A year later the Aldanzoloto Trust was organized to explore and mine the Aldan placers. The region produced hundreds of tons of gold, and many large nuggets were found there.

A 1917 deserter from the tsarist army, A. Boriska, discovered another gold province in the northeast in the Kolyma River basin, though he would not profit from it or even be credited for it. The placer was in the lower part of the Srednikan River, approximately 8 kilometers downstream from the Bezymyanny Creek inflow. Boriska died in the pit he dug, and the gold he found was not rich enough to attract his "colleagues" at first.

Prospectors, however, persisted in exploring the Kolyma basin. Finally, in 1925 S. Gainullin and F. Polikarpov encountered a promising gold showing in Bezymyanny Creek. Samples were shipped to the local mining administration in Yakutsk, but delays occurred with the organization of any follow-up work. At last, in 1928, the National Geological Committee, then located in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), sent a geological team headed by twenty-eight-year old Yury Bilibin, who became a famous geologist through his development of the Kolyma gold province and a series of other Russian mineral deposits. His deputy, Valentin Tsaregradsky, was only twenty-six.

The team landed in the Nagaeva inlet of the Sea of Okhotsk in July 1928. This coast soon became a base for geologists and gold miners, and the town of Magadan grew up there. But BiIibin's team was alone then-and still 700 grueling kilometers from its target at Srednikan. Because of a lack of food and horses, Bilibin divided the team in half. Bilibin and four others started immediately to Srednikan, and a second team, headed by Tsaregradsky, remained at the coast, waiting for the frost and snow that would make shipping the major equipment easier by sled. It took Bilibin two and a half months to get to Srednikan (a tributary of the Kolyma River) by struggling up steep mountain paths and rafting down wild rivers.

Tsaregradsky led his team along the marked way but was delayed for two weeks because of bad weather, which could have cost Bilibin and his men their lives. However, the geologists were lucky. A year of intense work later, the team discovered valuable placers in the Srednikan basin. What is more important, Bilibin, Tsaregradsky, and their colleagues established key geological consistencies in the placer location and formation. They proved that Kolyma is the largest and richest gold province in the country. Sometime later in Leningrad, Bilibin found minerals of tin-mainly cassiterite-in samples collected in Kolyma. Large tin deposits were found there shortly thereafter.

Figure 6. Gold (#K-1227), 7.0 x 2.5 cm, unknown deposit, 1919.

Figure 7. Gold (#6589), total weight 6.8 grams, Nizhnii Tagil area, Middle Urals.

The climate of Kolyma is extreme, even compared to the grim background of eastern Siberia. Oymyakon, the coldest place in the Northern Hemisphere, is located in that region, where winter temperatures fall well below minus 50C. During the period of geological discoveries, there was practically no regular population in Kolyma, and roads were nonexistent. The development of this territory required the concerted efforts of numerous workers who were needed to overcome several formidable obstacles. Hence, Kolyma from the 1930s through the 1950s became covered with prison camps, and the slave labor of convicts became the key "producing" force. Many mineral deposits within Kolyma continue to be mined today. Mineral resource estimates make local gold miners optimistic, and lode gold has not been seriously explored and mined there yet.

The Olekma Gold Mine Company (Olekminskaya Zolotorudnaya Kompaniya), currently one of the largest gold-producing companies in Russia, is developing the Kubaka gold deposit and annually produces about 15 tons of gold (15.3 tons in 1999).

Because of the heroic efforts of early industry pioneers and the application of increasingly modern techniques of exploration, by 1953 the annual Russian gold output had grown to 177 tons, and the national gold reserve exceeded 2,000 tons. Production of gold in the USSR kept growing, augmented by new discoveries.

In 1990, 302 tons of gold were produced in the USSR. However, the collapse of the USSR resulted in a sharp slump in gold production, and in 1995 Russia produced only 132 tons of the metal. In part this happened because some large deposits occur outside of Russia proper. Muruntau, for example, lies in the Republic of Uzbekistan. In 1995 this deposit alone yielded 50 tons of the 75 produced in this country. Total losses in gold production caused by new national borders were estimated at 95-100 tons per year.

Another reason for the slump was the disarray of the Russian economic structure in general and in gold production in particular. The centralized management system fell apart, and numerous joint- stock gold-producing companies failed. Place this against the background of the general national economic crisis, and it is clear that the production of gold would suffer. But to put the seriousness of this crisis in perspective, during World War II, when the national industry was totally oriented toward the needs of the army and defense, and all nonmilitary areas of economics slumped, gold production remained the only growing "civilian" industry.

The last reason for the current decreased gold production is that the rich placer gold deposits in Russia are exhausted. For the time being, explored gold resources in Russia are estimated as 10,000- 12,000 tons and potential resources as 50,000-55,000 tons. More than 70 percent of these resources consist of lode gold, which is far more expensive to mine than that of placers. However, Russia is sixth among world goldproducers and will stay at the top of the list for years to come despite a sharp increases in gold production in China, Indonesia, Papua-New Guinea, and Ghana. During the last few years the situation has started to improve, and some people believe the recession is over.

Table 2. Dip in Russian gold production.

Figure 8. Gold (#9426), 2.5 cm, Serebraynka River, Middle Urals.

Currently, gold is produced in twenty-nine regions of Russia. However, 90 percent of the metal is supplied from the northeast and Far East. Table 2 illustrates the dip in gold production in Russia.

THE GEOLOGY OF RUSSIAN GOLD DEPOSITS

The text of this section is based entirely on recent books published in Russia on the subject. General descriptions of the province originate from Mezhelovsky and Smyslov (2001), and local geological settings and petrographic and mineralogical descriptions come from Konstantinov et al. (2000). Much useful data, both geological and economical, come from Benevolsky (2002).

Hundreds of minor gold deposits and scores of major ones occur within the national borders of Russia. They differ in their geology and origin, but together they form eighteen gold provinces (Mezhelovsky and Smyslov 2001). These deposits correlate with individual large geological and structural crustal zones, and the greater part of them lie in Siberia and the Russian Far East (fig. 9). Only three lie within the European part of Russia, and these are characterized by low productivity. These European deposits are:

(1) the Karelia-Kola province, where gold is extracted as a byproduct from massive sulfide base-metal and Cu-Ni ores, rare- metal, and U-V ores;

(2) the Voronezh province, where two auriferous zones are found to occur in the ringlike zones hosted by volcanic and terrigenuous- carbonate sequences at depths below 600 meters (Kshenskoe and Mikhailovskoe deposits); and

(3) the North Caucasian province, where gold occurs both as small lode deposits (auriferous quartz veins) and as alluvial placers.

Among the gold provinces of Russia, the Ural-TimanNovaya Zemlya province holds a special position. It spans along the entire Ural chain, from the Bashkir steppe in the south to the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the north. Mining history in this province began two and a half centuries ago. Within its boundaries occurs the renowned Beryozovskoe mine, where the first major findings of Russian lode gold were made and where miners still produce around 2 tons of the metal per year. Beryozovskoe (Beresovsk) is a classic quartz vein- type lode that is world famous in the geological and mineralogical community. Its geology and origin have been studied by generations of both Russian and foreign scientists, among them the eminent academicians Humboldt and Rose, Vernadsky, and Fersman. Beryozovskoe is also the type locality for crocoite, the first new mineral discovered and described within the Russian territory.

Benevolsky (2002) gives a recent detailed description of the Beryozovskoe deposit in his monograph, which depicts it as a series of granite porphyry dikes trending north and northeast (fig. 10). Most of the dikes are high-angle to vertical, metamorphosed, and host to ladder quartz veins arranged perpendicularly to the dike contacts. Along with ladder veins related to the dikes, the so- called quartz-and-ocher (krasichny) veins are shown, which are not determined directly by the dikes but tend to follow tectonically weakened zones.

The rocks that compose the Beryozovskoe deposit form the following three complexes:

(1) an oceanic complex represented by serpentinized harzbur gite, gabbro, primitive diabase, and lava of the Ordovician-Lower Silurian periods; and

(2) two collision-related complexes of different ages: the older- a tonalite-granodiorite series (Lower Car boniferous), and the younger-a granite porphyry of Permian age.

Volcanic and volcanic-sedimentary rocks within the Beryozovskoe ore field invariably dip northward. This part of the sequence forms two series. The lower series consists of alternating basalt lava, tuff breccia, tufite, and siliceous rock, whereas the upper one is dominated by diabase. The total thickness of the series is more than 1,200 meters.

Figure 9. Location map of gold deposits and gold-bearing provinces in the Russian territory (from Mezhelovsky and Smyslov 2001). 1. Mineral deposits: a-large and b-other, explored and prospected; 2. gold-bearing provinces and their names (numbers on the scheme).

Gold occurs with quartz in the ladder and quartz-and-ocher veins. The ore is a low-sulfidation type (total sulfide content is less than 3-5 percent). Gold occurs both as free grains and as impregnations in sulfides. Its fineness ranges from 84 to 98 percent pure. The base-metal association is typical of productive veins: pyrite, chalcopyrite, tetrahedrite, aikinite, and native gold.

The deposit is deeply mined. The working level currently lies at a depth of about 600 meters. In 1989 in the northern part of Beryozovskoe (Northern mine, 520-meter level) a large nest of "nuggets" was found. The largest of these weighed 600 grams.

The Salair-Altai-Sayany province lies within a vast shear zone that encircles the south and southeast margins of the west Siberian plate and adjoins the Siberian craton from the southwest. This province has a long and complicated history, from the Archean to the Late Caledonean (Benevolsky 2002). The gold potential of the province was created mainly by the formation of a thick volcanogenic, carbonate, sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone series during the formation of insular arcs along the active continental margins during the Late Proterozoic-Middle Cambrian. This was accompanied by the multistage emplacement of large intrusive bodies in the Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian periods. By their origin, gold deposits here fall into the skarn-related gold-sulfide type. Gold deposits occur predominately within intrusives. The major placers are exhausted now, and the situation with lode deposits is similar. About 4 tons of gold have been mined here annually during the past few years.

Further eastward, the Yenisei-East Sayany province lies within the limits of the Baikalian shear zone that adjoins the Siberian platform from the south. It comprises the Yenisei and East Sayany ridges. The Yenisei ridge is among the areas of highest gold potential in Russia. Gold has been mined in Yenisei-East Sayani for more than a century, and this area remains a significant source of Russian gold. Placers and lode deposits (quartz vein and gold- antimony types) always have served as a basis for the gold production here, but because of the recent discovery of a giant Olimpiada deposit that falls to another (high-sulfidation) type, the significance of this province has grown. This deposit lies in the Severe-Yenisei region of the Krasnoyarsk Krai (administrative division) and within the limits of the Baikal shear zone.

Gold mineralization occurs in a terrigeneous-carbonate sequence containing carbonaceous members. The thickness of the sequence varies from 300 to 500 meters in the hinge parts of large folds to 20 or so meters in the periphery of the limbs. According to Konstantinov et al. (2000), the Olimpiada deposit lies at a hinge of adjoining limb parts of an anticline. The center of the structure is composed of quartz-mica schist, whereas intensely altered polycomponent shale, an ore-bearing horizon, dominates above the limbs.

Figure 10. Schematic geological map of the Beryozovskoe ore field in the Middle Urals (after I. T. Samartsev; in Geological Service and Mineral Resources, Moscow, TsNIGRI, 1993).

Figure 11. Schematic geological map of the Olimpiada deposit (after Konstantinov et al. 2000).

Within the deposit, the valuable ore forms subconformable stratified bodies within the limits of altered parts of the orebearing horizon (fig. 11). About 90 percent of the gold ore reserve is contained in the major orebody, which lies in the eastern part of the deposit. The primary ore is a metasomatically altered rock that carries sulfides (2-5 percent on average). Pyrrhotite and arsenopyrite are the most common ore minerals, with the latter being the major gold concentrator. Gold in pyrite ranges in size from 2 to 10 micrometers (i.e., it is fine-grained). The absolute age of mineralization ranges from 794 to 609 million years ago, and the gold content ranges from 4 to 5 ppm. Along with lode deposits, this province contains rich valley and terrace placers that are actively mined.

The Baikal province includes territories west of Lake Baikal as well as the Patoma Highlands. The famous Bodaibo gold placer region is located here. Placers found in this province in the 1930s made this region one of the key goldproducing areas in Russia. Currently the production rate is about 10-12 tons per year.

Besides the placers, the province also includes the recently discovered giant deposit of Sukhoi Log (Dry Valley), with reserves estimated as 1,100 tons of gold (Benevolsky 2002). This deposit, which lies in the center of the Lena gold-producing region (fig. 12), is underlain by a thick sedimentary sequence of sandstone, siltstone, mudstone, and limestone of upper Proterozoic age (fig. 13). The major stage of ore deposition is related to active volcanism and subsequent hydrothermal activities during the middle and late Paleozoic. The ore zone is a combination of veinlets, lenses, and nests of pyrite and quartz. The thickness of the orebody varies from 15 to 150 meters. Besides Sukhoi Log, many smaller gold- quartz and gold-sulfide deposits are known to occur within the Patoma Highlands. Some have been prospected but not mined.

The Transbaikal province covers a vast territory from the eastern coast of Lake Baikal in the west to the Stanovoi ridge in the north to the upper parts of the Olekma River in the east. The known gold deposits here vary in age and type. Some were formed during the Baikalian, Caledonian, Hercynian, and Kimmerian orogenies; others were formed as deposits related to the tectonic and magmatic activation periods, including the Cenozoic. Gold deposition was the most productive during the course of the Hercynian and Kimmerian metallogenic epochs and the Mezo-Cenozoic activation stage (Mezhelovsky and Smyslov 2001). According to the general structural pattern of the province, major ore-controlling elements tend toward relatively narrow belts striking northeast. Within these belts, gold mineralization is associated with rare metals, base metals, uranium, antimony, and mercury. Two major lode deposits should be mentioned: Baleiskoe (Baleisko-Taseyevskoe) and Darasunskoe (Darasunsko- Ittakinskoe). Five decades of mining here yielded about 250 tons of gold. The richest orebodies and major placers are exhausted (Benevolsky 2002).

Figure 12. Schematic geological map of the Aentral Lensky gold- bearing district (after Konstantinov et al. 2000).

The Darasunskoe deposit along with the adjacent Ittakinskoe, Teremkinskoe, Klyuchevskoe, and some other deposits are gold- sulfide and gold-quartz-sulfide formation types. Ore mineralization here was deposited in relation to the development of multiphase granitoid plutons. The ore is associated with plagiogranite porphyry of Mesozoic age. The Darasunskoe group of deposits produced a total of 1OO tons of gold. The grade of mined ore has diminished, but still about 1 ton of gold is mined annually.

Because of the presence of abundant bedrock sources, the province is rich in placers that have been in operation for more than 150 years, yet only about 70 percent of the total gold here has been mined. Placers are evenly spread over the province, from the Chikoy River basin in the west and the Vitim Highlands in the northwest (Tsipikan, Udakit, and Bagdarinsk) to the east of the province (Nerchinsky, Sredne-Shilkinsky, Mogochinsky, Dzhalindinsky, and so on).

The Aldan-Stanovoy province consists of two gold-bearing regions, the Aldan and the Stanovoy. This province is among the leaders in lode gold production and is also a significant source of placer gold. Administratively, the province comprises the southern parts of the Sakha-Yakutia republic and the northern parts of the Amursk region and the Khabarovsky district.

Figure 13. Schematic geological map of Sukhoi Log deposit (after Konstantinov et al. 2000).

The sedimentary Paleozoic cover of the southern rim of the Siberian platform hosts numerous gold deposits. The cover overlies a crystalline basement of the Aldan craton and is intruded by a series of Late Mesozoic minor plutons (Mezhelovsky and Smyslov 2001).

In the central Aldan region, gold deposits occur as sulfide veinlet zones and suspensions that carry fine and ultrafine particles of gold. Mineralization was deposited at relatively shallow levels where the ore-bearing solutions percolated into the fissured zones of thin platform cover to be deposited in carbonate varieties (e.g., the Lebedinoe deposit) as well as into old karstic voids to form morphologically complicated lens-, plate-, and belly- shaped sulfide bodies in karst-disintegrated rocks (e.g., the Kuranakhskoe deposit). Subsequent supergenic oxidation of sulfides produced a combination of Sulfides and oxyhydroxides with predominately "free" gold released from the primary sulfides.

The Stanovoy region is bordered in the north by the Stanovoy fault and in the cast and the south by the MongolOkhotsk fault. In the east its structures are buried under the volcanic rocks of the Okhotsk-Chukotka belt. Economically, this province is quite important. Prior to 1977 Kuranakhskoe was the largest gold- producing area in Russia, with an annual metal output of about 7 tons (Benevolsky 2002).

The Bureya-Amur province comprises the territories of the Amurskiy region and the Khabarovsky administrative district from the upper parts of the Amur River basin to Uda Bay on the Sea of Okhotsk. The geological features of this province are similar to those of the Transbaikal. Moreover, many structural elements (which determine the specific location of lode gold mineralization) in Transbaikalia are traceable to those of the Amurskiy region. Their compositions have been determined by the Mongol-Okhotsk shear zone.

The Tokur deposit in the Selemdzha part of the Amurskiy region is a well-known area that has produced about 25 tons of gold. Numerous smaller deposits occur in this same area (e.g., Uglichikanskoe and Kharginskoe) and were the sources of many gold placers (Mezhelovsky and Smyslov 2001).

Alluvial placers are the major economic sources of gold in the Bureya-Amur province, and some of these have been mined for a century or more. Despite such a considerable mining period, predictions during the past decade have been quite optimistic: This province is considered the most promising among the Russian placer provinces. Of the total Russian placer resources, 30 percent are here. The major gold fields are Zeisky, Tyndinsky, Skovorodinsky, Mazanovsky, and Selemdzhinsky, located in the Amurskiy region. In 1977 the gold output of the more than seventy gold-producing local enterprises was almost 10 tons (Benevolsky 2002).

The Yana-Kolyma province is immensely important for Russia because of its size as well as its gold output. A vast majority of the local deposits occur within folded Mesozoic structures of the Yana-Kolyma terrigenous basin (a passive margin) and its continuation along the Arctic coast up to the western part of the Chukotka Peninsula. Administratively, the province lies within the eastern and northeastern parts of the Saka-Yakutia republic, Magadan province, and a minor part of the Khabarovsk district (Mezhelovsky and Smyslov 2001).

The gold mineral resources are unevenly distributed over the territory. A greater proportion of the deposits lie on the southeastern flank of the province (the upper parts of the Kolyma and Indigirka River basins). The mineralized zones cluster into relatively narrow (10-15 kilometers at most), elongated (tens to thousands of kilometers) zones comprising abundant dike belts and granitoid plutons of Mesozoic age.

Figure 14. Gold (#46097), 3 x 2.5 cm, unknown deposit.

Figure 15. Gold (#993), 2.5 x 1.6 x 0.8 cm, Sanarka River, South Urals, 1919.

Figure 16. Gold (#10271), 1.8 x 1.1 cm, Alexandrovskii field, Malyi Murozhnoi Creek, Yenisei Range, Siberia.

Placer deposits in the upper Kolyma and Indigirka comprise the main gold potential of the province, although numerous minor placers are spread over the whole Yana-Kolyma belt. Some extraordinary placers have been discovered here: ChaiUr'yah, Berelekh, Malyi At- Yuryakh, Khattynakh, and Srednikan-the only placers to produce more than 2,000 tons of gold during the past five decades (Benevolsky 2002).

The origins of local lode deposits vary. Minor gold-quartz veins are the most common. They either cut across or conform to the terrigenous sequence of the Verkhoyansk series of mineralized dikes. These veins usually bear free coarse-grained, high-grade gold and produce most of the placers in the province (e.g., Svetloe, Tokichanskoe, and Yugler). Mineralized dikes are common enough to be considered the predominant type of medium-sized deposits (e.g., Mal'dyak, Shturmovskoe, Utinskoe, and Kolymskoe). The presence of large lode deposits is a remarkable feature of this province. Mineralization occurs as veinlets and impregnations in faulted cataclastic sandstone-mudstone sequences of the Verkhoyansk series (Natalkinskoe, Nezhdaninskoe, Vetrinskoe, Verkhny Khakchan, and others). Original quartz-sulfide deposits of this group occur at regional-scale faults, which cut through crystalline Mesozoic formations. Ore deposition here was a lengthy process, created by significantly varying tectonic stresses and heat flows, starting in the Early Cretaceous and continuing through the Paleogene.

In addition to gold-quartz and gold-quartz-sulfide deposits, gold- antimony and gold-mercury mineralization is also found here, hosted either in mineralized fault zones within the clastic rocks of the Verkhoyansk series (Lazo, Sentachan, Imtachan, and Sarylakhskoe) or related to dikes (Krokhalinoye). Kyuchus, a large gold-antimony- mercury deposit, was found in the northwestern branch of the Mesozoides (Kular area, Sakha-Yakutia) (Konstantinov et al. 2000). The gold-bearing quartz vein deposits of the province are extremely unevenly distributed and have large nugget clusters (Pionersky trend, Tgumenovskoye deposit). They are of special interest because of the rich placers that they host. These are believed to be pregranite (Mesozoic) areas.

Along with these deposits Shkol'noe, a "young" mediumsized deposit concentrated in granite stocks, was recently discovered. Its formation is related to the renewed magmatic processes within a perivolcanic area of the Okhotsk-Chukotka belt. This deposit is marked by a significant vertical range of mineralization and relatively high gold content in the ore. Along with gold, the ore is rich in silver, bismuth, and tellurium (Konstantinov et al. 2000).

Lode gold deposits and related placers located in the southern part of the upper Yana basin form a special group. These lode deposits occur as a strata-bound series of thin veins and veinlets that carry free coarse-grained and high-grade gold. The auriferous veins there are usually interbedded sandstone-mudstone varieties metamorphosed into greenschist facies. This area is known as Allakh- Yun' (placers) or Duet-Brindakitsky (lodes). Bular, Brindakitskoe, Onochallakh, and Duet are the best-studied deposits here (Benevolsky 2002).

The Chukotka province lies in the extreme northeastern part of Asia. Administratively, it comprises the Chukotka national district and parts of the Magadan and Kamchatka regions. Structurally, the province is made up of the Chukotka fold system and the eastern Chukotka microcontinent. The southern border of the province follows the boundary of the Okhotsk-Chukotka volcanic belt.

Gold mineralization within the province is believed to be driven by collision-related granite plutons and, in particular, a series of dikes from the Early Mesozoic. Low-sulfidation gold-quartz veins occur most frequently. Koral'vemskoe, located in the western part of the Chukotka Peninsula, is the best-known deposit. The mineralization is hosted by flysch rocks (of Triassic age) cut by dikes. The gold distribution in the ore is quite uneven-coarse grains with occasional nuggets are typical. The placers are widely distributed over the area (Gremuchaya, Ichuveemskaya, lul'tinskaya, Severnaya, and Ryveemskaya) and are clustered into large groups, or nodes (Kuvet-Ryveemsky, Ichuveem-Palyavaamsky, and Ashoisky). Predicted gold resources are quite significant here, and annual placer gold output from the province is more than 10 tons (Mezhelovsky and Smyslov 2001).

Figure 17. Gold (#23090), 4 cm tall, Kremlevskii mine, Beryozovsk, Middle Urals.

Figure 18. Gold (#23097), 5.5 x 3.5 cm, Nevyanovskaya Dacha placer, Middle Urals.

Figure 19. Gold (#30035), 3 x 1.5 cm, Beryozovsk, Middle Urals.

The Kolyma-Omolon province is a new unit located in the northeastern part of Siberia. It comprises the northeastern part of the Magadan region. Structurally, this province lies within the Oloi folded zone along with the Omolon and Sub-Kolyma microcontinents. Each of these zones is known for placers: Topolovskaya and Inakhskaya in the Oloi zone, and Stolbovaya in the Sub-Kolyma.

The discovery of the Kubaka gold-silver deposit was a significant event in the mining history of the province. This discovery is important not only because of the considerable gold and silver reserves in high-grade ore, but also because the ore in this deposit occurs in Devonian volcanics and displays all the characteristics of the Devonian Period, so it opens great possibilities for gold exploration in the Paleozoic volcanic rocks that are widely spread over the entire province. Kubaka is mined by a joint Russian- American enterprise. It consists of a mine, ore dressing, and gold extracting factories. By 1999 the annual gold output was as much as 16 tons, which positioned the enterprise at the top of lode gold production in Russia (Mezhelovsky and Smyslov 2001).

The Okhotsk-Chukotka province is the largest insular arcactive margin volcanogenic structure in both the Russian Far East and northeast. It carries gold-silver mineralization of a special sort. Administratively, it comprises the continental northeastern and coastal southern parts of the Magadan region along with the eastern part of the Khabarovsk district, adjoining the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk down to Uda Bay and the Amur estuary.

Within this province, gold deposits tend to occur in the intersections of deep-seated concordant and cutting fault zones within the volcanic belt. Ore districts and trends that are located at large volcano-tectonic depressions, cupolas, or thrust zones mark such localities. The deposits occur either along the peripheries of volcanic edifices or lie within the central zones of cupolas, often at the plug facies members.

Deposits are classified, on the basis of the silver/gold ratio, as gold (Ag/Au < or = 10), gold-silver (Ag/Au < or = 100; e.g., Khakandzha, Karamken, Nyavlenga, Oyra, Evenskoe, and Dzhul'yetta), and silver (Ag/Au > 100; e.g., Dukat). The mineral composition of the ore classifies the deposits into numerous types, which differ in both total sulfide content and vein and ore mineral assemblages. The purity of gold in such deposits is low because of the relatively high silver content. The major mineral species are kuestellite, electrum, and tellurides (Mezhelovsky and Smyslov 2001).

Figure 20. Gold (#33433), 5.8 cm tall, Khoral deposit, Tuva.

Figure 21. Gold (#33434), 6 cm across, Lena River, Yakutia.

Figure 22. Gold (#33435), 4.5 x 3 cm, Lena River, Yakutia.

Of the unique deposits located in the province, the gold-silver Dukat deposit is the most noteworthy. It lies within the discordantly aligned Balygychan-Sugoi basin, which is underlain by volcanic rocks and carbonaceous molasses that cover the Verkhoyansk terrigenous rocks. The Dukat ore field lies at a large volcanic cupola developed over an apical part of a concealed alkali granite laccolite of Cretaceous age. Veinlets and disseminations of quartz- chlorite-adularia and quartz-rhodonite mineral assemblages on the average contain 500 ppm of silver and 1 ppm of gold. (High- sulfidation ore is just 1 percent of the total.) The major mineral species of silver are native silver and acanthite, but kuestellite and electrum are present. The vertical range of the individual orebodies is 70-600 meters. This deposit formed in an unusual manner. Two deposition stages overlapped, corresponding to volcanic and plutonic cycles of high-potassium rhyolite-granite series development during the Late Cretaceous (Konstantinov et al. 2000).

The Nizhnii Amur-Primorsk province covers the Sikhote-Alin Mountains south from the Amur estuary. Administratively, it comprises the Primorsky district and an eastern part of the Khabarovsk district. This province combines a group of deposits that originated with the development of volcanic edifices in Sikhote- Alin' and the southern continuation of the Okhotsk-Chukotka belt. The deposits occur as veins, vein series, and stockwork zones hosted by hydrothermally altered rocks (propilitization, argyllization, silicification, and adularization). Placer gold mining in the province is significant because of the numerous but small deposits, especially in the Khabarovsk area. Coastal placers are known to occur in Peter the Great Bay.

Sakhalin province, located on the island of the same name, is a folded Cenozoic formation where no considerable lode deposits have been found. Individual occurrences of goldquartz and gold-sulfide mineralization occur along the eastcentral margin of the island, at Schmidt Peninsula and other places. Only small economic alluvial placers have ever been mined, some of them using dredges (Langeriyskaya group) (Mezhelovsky and Smyslov 2001).

The Koryak-Kuril-Kamchatka province includes the outer zones of the volcanic plates that compose the outer margin of the Asian continent. Due to complexities in its geological history, gold mineralization differs significantly in this territory. Within the Koryak Highlands, gold mineralization is related to ultramafic rocks of Mesozoic age, as well as to younger volcanics of the andesite- basalt series (Mezhelovsky and Smyslov 2001).

In the Kuril Islands, Prasolovskoe (Kunashir island) is the only minor vein-type gold-silver deposit known; it is currently subeconomic.

In Kamchatka, the lode gold mineralization occurs in the uplifts of the Middle Kamchatka microcontinent (e.g., the Zolotoe deposit) as well as in the Cenozoic volcanic arcs in eastern Kamchatka. Most of the deposits are classified as gold-silver deposits concentrated at volcanic cupolas and calderas. Morphologically, these are veins and veinlike bodies. Proportions in gangue and ore minerals may differ, but typically the assemblage includes quartz, chalcedony, opal, adularia, kaolinite, and carbonates (gangue minerals), which associate with lesser amounts of sulfides and sulfosalts, low-grade gold, kuestellite, electrum, and native silver, along with gold and silver tellurides. Gold content may be as high as several hundred ppm, and conventional ore may be 20 or more ppm. Most deposits are too small to develop individually under the current economic situation in Kamchatka, so these deposits are considered a reserve. Even such a noteworthy deposit as Ametistovoye falls into this category, despite the fact that its reserves are about 100 tons of gold at 15-16 ppm (Mezhelovsky and Smyslov 2001).

Figure 23. Gold (#33438), 6.5 3 cm, Lena River, Yakutia.

Figure 24. Gold (#33472), 7 5 cm, unknown deposit.

Figure 25. Gold (#43202), 7 5 cm, Miass, South Urals.

Figure 26. Gold (#10270), 5.5 4.5 cm, Udobnyi field, Garevaya River, Yenisei province, 1905.

Placers within this province occur mainly in the Koryal Highlands, where they were found in the 1940s. The Otrozhnensky placer group produces about 1 ton of gold per year. In the 1970s a series of gold-platinum group placers were found and prospected, and then mining began (e.g., Soinavskaya, Epel' chikskaya, and Altynskaya). In Kamchatka, placers occur along the northern and southern margins of the Middle Kamchatka microcontinent (e.g., Ozernovskaya and Bystrinskaya); a few deposits are known in the eastern part of the peninsula (Ol'khovskaya).

The Taimyr-Severnaya Zemlya province is a potentially gold- bearing territory that has yet to be thoroughly studied. It is worth mentioning the geological history of this most northern province, beginning with the Cambrian and proceeding through the Hercynian. The folding and magmatism that occurred here (including an insular arc-active margin phase and subsequent collision) leave no room for doubt that real gold potential exists, yet it remains undiscovered. The numerous lode and placer deposits that occur along the northern coast of the Taimyr Peninsula (Cape Chelyuskin, Kunarskoe field, Paladera Bay, Cape Vezdekhod, and Ush and Serebryanka valleys) and Bolshevik Island (Studeninskoe deposits, both lode and placer) prove this. Currently, some of the known deposits (mainly bar placers with easily recoverable gold) are mined by prospector cooperatives. Presumably, further studies of this province will yield discoveries of alluvial valley placers (including buried ones) as well as lode gold, especially in the volcanic-terrigenous series of carbonaceous rocks (Mezhelovsky and Smyslov 2001).

Figure 27. Gold (#19968), field of view 4.5 3.8 cm, Argun River, Amur province, 1922.

Figure 28. Gold (#29568), 3.5 1.3 cm, Gazimurskii field, Transbaikalia, 1925.

Figure 30. Gold (#30059), 7 cm tall, Beryozovsk, Middle Urals, 1929.

Figure 29. Gold (#33439), 2 2.6 cm, Lena River, Yakutia, 1930.

COLLECTING GOLD IN RUSSIA

It is believed that Peter the Great was the first Russian mineral collector. He founded the first Russian museum, the Kunstkammer, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, and in 1719 he issued the aforementioned decree allowing anyone to mine anywhere in Russia in any way they saw fit. However, this did not begin Russian mineral collecting in general. All gold thus mined was required to be sold to the state. Only in 1824 did the Finance Committee declare that "private entrepreneurs are given the right to keep as their property rare nuggets and hand samples, provided their quantity is below three pounds per year, or just one nugget or hand sample of greater weight" (Danilevskii 1959). This declaration resulted in gold nuggets and samples beginning to accumulate in private collections all over Russia.

Donations to the state created a most impressive collection. For almost three centuries gold nuggets donated to the Russian tsars by gold mining's top men were stored in the museum of the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute, forming a unique collection. Donations from wealthy collectors enriched the scientific collections of other colleges and universities as well.

The Bolsheviks, however, coming to power in 1917, monopolized gold mining and production and ordered the transfer of all nuggets and other treasures from private collections and museums to the Ministry of Finance. The complete destruction of private collections and the significant reduction of museum inventories wiped out the best items.

Thus, today private collections of gold in Russia are nonexistent. However, state museums (the Mining Institute in Saint Petersburg, the A. E. Fersman Mineralogical Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the State Academy of Mining and Geology in Ekaterinburg) and some other organizations own small collections of native gold from Russian deposits. The most valuable nuggets are kept in special state-owned storages and are not accessible to the public. The Diamond Fund, an exhibition of the State Russian Storage (GOKHRAN) in the Kremlin, is an exception. Here, the best-known nuggets found in Russia-including the famous 36-kilogram Big Triangle from the Miass River Valley-can be seen.

Figure 31. Gold (#33475), 1.5 x 0.7 cm, Verkhnii Creek, Yakutia, 1923.

Figure 32. Gold (#54001), 2.7 cm tall, Bodaibo, Yakutia, 1952.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to Dr. Margarita I. Novgorodova, director of the A. E. Fersman Mineralogical Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, for her kind permission to use photographs of gold specimens from the museum collection and for her assistance with revisions to this article. Also, this article would never have appeared without the active support of Ludmila Cheshko (Egorova) of the Mineralogical Almanac. Additional thanks go to Michael Kandinov (Vernadsky State Geological Museum) for his highly useful advice and comments, to Joel A. Bartsch (Houston Museum of Natural Science) and Dr. Carl A. Francis (Harvard Mineralogical Museum) for their helpful reviews, and to John Taylor for the use of his historical postcards.

REFERENCES

Benevolsky, B. I. 2002. Gold of Russia. Moscow: Geoinformmark. (in Russian)

Danilevskii, V. V. 1959. Russian gold. Moscow: Metalurgizdat. (in Russian)

Konstantinov, M. M. et al. 2000. Gold giants of Russia and the world. Moscow: Nauchny Mir. (in Russian)

Mezhelovsky, N. V., and A. A. Smyslov, eds. 2001. Mineral wealth of Russia. Vol. 1, Mineral resources. Saint Petersburg-Moscow: Interregional Center of Geology. (in Russian)

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