The Sixth Geological Brigade of Shandong Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Sciences has discovered a total of 2,810 tons of gold in 64 years, becoming the geological team with the most gold-seeking money in the country. This is a set of photos of the sixth brigade members looking for minerals in the wild. (Data photo)
■Editor's note Not long ago, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the honorary title of "Hero Geological Team with Outstanding Merits and Selfless Dedication" by the State Council, all geological workers from the Sixth Geological Brigade of Shandong Provincial Bureau of Geology and Minerals wrote a letter to General Secretary Xi Jinping to report on the achievements made in mineral exploration and express their determination to devote themselves to the geological cause and contribute to the security of national energy and resources. On October 2, General Secretary Xi Jinping wrote back to the geological workers of the Sixth Brigade, expressing high expectations for them to carry forward the fine traditions and do a good job in mineral exploration: "People have a greater role in the new round of breakthrough strategic actions in mineral exploration, make new contributions to ensuring national energy and resources security, and make new contributions to the comprehensive construction of a modern socialist country in , and strive to write a new chapter of the 'Hero Geological Team'." This famous hero team has once again attracted national attention.
What kind of team is the Sixth Brigade of the General Secretary’s reply? What kind of responsibilities, breakthroughs and contributions are there in the struggle to ensure the security of national energy and resources? Recently, our reporter interviewed in depth and collected the most convincing group of portrayals from the Sixth Brigade for the National People's Republic of China. I believe it will give readers an intuitive and vivid answer.
□ Reporter of this newspaper Li Zhen Fu Yuting
For a long time, our country has faced the embarrassment of insufficient "gold content": At the beginning of the founding of New China, the gold reserves explored nationwide were basically a piece of white paper, with an annual output of only about 6 tons. In the following 30 years, the national gold production was less than 300 tons, with an average annual output of less than 10 tons. By the end of 2020, the situation had undergone drastic changes: the world's total proven gold resources was 100,000 tons, and my country reached 14,727.16 tons, accounting for about 15%, ranking second in the world after South Africa; that year, the world's gold production was 3,478 tons, and my country reached 365 tons, ranking first in the world for 14 consecutive years since 2007.
Behind this is the efforts of the Republic's gold-seeking man. The first contribution is the Sixth Geological Brigade of Shandong Provincial Geological and Mineral Bureau (hereinafter referred to as the "Sixth Brigade").
In 1958, when the demand for gold for the construction of New China was becoming increasingly prominent, the predecessor of the Sixth Brigade, a geological team with the main focus on finding gold mines came into being. In the following 64 years, the Sixth Brigade found a total of 2,810 tons of gold, accounting for 1/5 of the country, becoming the veritable first team to find gold in the country.
More importantly, it shoulders the mission of "proving" national gold exploration, and, with its own strength, continuously expands the new territory of my country's gold industry -
"The large fault only guides ores but not stores ores, so gold mines will only be formed in the quartz vein." For a long time after the founding of New China, this "golden law" of the former Soviet Union's gold exploration workers has bound the footsteps of my country's gold exploration workers and has also become the root cause of the long-term hovering of the country's gold resource production.
The sixth team broke through the dilemma. Since the 1960s, after more than 20 years of continuous exploration, the Sixth Brigade has pioneered the "Jiaojia-style" mineral exploration theory of "large faults can also store mines". The national gold mine exploration realm has since opened up: in Jiaodong , the low-temperature hills and basins that have been broken through long-term erosion and division, with a land area of less than 0.27% of the country, leaping into the three major gold-rich areas in the world. At the same time, many gold mines of this type have been discovered in Henan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia and other places with the guidance of new theoretical foundations. Before 1985, the total amount of gold surveyed by the Sixth Brigade accounted for 1/3 of the country. After the "Jiaojia style" theory was promoted nationwide, this number became 1/5. One rises and the other falls, which demonstrates the "proofing" role of the Sixth Brigade.
After the mid-1990s, shallow mines across the country were basically explored, and gold development entered a low period again.As the largest gold producer in the country, Shandong has only 625 tons of gold reserves around 2005, which means that if there is no new addition, the production capacity can only be maintained for about 8 years at that time, and by 2010, 85% of the mines will lose their production capacity.
The country has problems, and the sixth brigade stands out again: At the beginning of the new century, the sixth brigade explored a super-large gold mine in the deep area of the Laizhou Sizhuang mining area, and was the first in the country to achieve a major breakthrough in "attacking deep and looking for blindness", providing key theoretical and technical support for opening up the deep second mineral exploration space in China, and once again opening up a new situation in national gold resource exploration and development.
Opening the display of major gold mine exploration results of the Sixth Brigade, Bao Zhongyi, technical director of the Sixth Brigade, specifically reminded reporters of two high-yield periods with abundant harvests: before the 1990s, two super-large gold mines in Jiaojia, Zhaoyuan Da Yingezhuang super-large gold mine, and the largest open-pit gold mine in the country on the Laizhou warehouse...were successful one after another; in 2005, we suddenly made great efforts, Laizhou Temple Village, Laizhou Shaling, Rushanxi Laokou, Zhaoyuan Shuiwang... Another batch of super-large and super-large mines burst out.
This is highly coincidental with the two "golden ages" in the history of Chinese gold exploration: from 1985 to 1994, the national proven reserves of gold grew rapidly, with an average annual growth rate of about 11%. Entering the new century, it once again grew steadily, and became the world's largest gold-producing country in 2007.
This is the responsibility of the Sixth Team in improving the country's "gold content".
breaks through
"Iron ore, copper ore , lead ore and other ordinary types, the target element in the rock reaches a percentage content, that is, to the minus 2 power of 10, even if it is mineralized. For gold, this number is minus 6 power of 10, that is, at least 1 gram of gold must be found in a ton of rock. The difference between the two is 10,000 times. The core extracted from the ore belt is finely crushed to the powder with a particle size of 200 mesh (0.074mm) in the laboratory, and the gold content in the ore can be measured by detection methods such as fire tester or wet titration." Fan Jiameng of the geological exploration department of the Sixth Brigade introduced the "technical content" of gold ore exploration to reporters.
"So, finding gold is as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack. Globally, finding gold mines is regarded as a venture capital. What is the success rate? 0.7 per thousand." Fan Jiameng said.
The "Jiaojia style" theory, which won the first National Science and Technology Progress Award for the first National Science and Technology Progress Award in 1985, "Discovery of Jiaojia style new type gold mines and its outstanding mineral exploration effects" is the most important theoretical discovery in the field of gold exploration in my country. The breakthrough is: from quartz vein type single mineralization to large fault zone altered rock type can also be mineralized. The original quartz veins were only one or two meters wide, while the width of the large fault band of altered rock reached several hundred meters, and the range was greatly expanded. However, accordingly, the unit gold content of quartz veins usually contain more than ten grams of gold per ton, and to only a few grams of the large fault band. Therefore, the subtext is very clear: the difficulty of finding gold has been greatly improved.
If you find or cannot find it, the gold mine is there. Only by drilling the prospecting rules deeper and stronger can we find gold mines from "non-nothing" to "existence".
Like the "Jiaojia" theory, the mines found by the sixth brigade are often accompanied by original mineralization models and mineral exploration theory. Their mineral exploration history is actually a scientific and technological research history that can be solved and blow away all the sand -
Relong-Extended mineralization theory: During the geological collision, the pressure temperature changes, and the deep hydrothermal comes up, and gold mines are easy to run on this belt, so we must keep a close eye on it.
Step-type mineralization theory: Gold ore has a large proportion of gravity, and it is easier to deposit ore in the gentle slopes, and it is not easy to retain in the steep areas, so drilling must be selected to select a slow place to be used.
…
The deeper and stronger. The geologist Wen Zizhong's home is only half a kilometer away from his unit, but because he was afraid of going home to disturb his thinking, he simply lived in the unit. Even the food was sent by his lover, and he volunteered to be a "mining prisoner". Geological expert Li Shixian, whose mind was full of structure, stress, and deformation. He went to the cafeteria to buy food and handed over the meal ticket. He turned around and left without taking the food. When he went out to buy cabbage, he saw that the vegetables were hollow when he came back, so he had to chop them all and feed the chickens. When he was eating, he suddenly became immersed in the geological structure thinking and put the ore into his mouth as steamed buns.Zhang Yuzhi, an important participant in the "Jiao Family Style" theory, served as the technical director in the Battle of Sanshan Island. He had many diseases and was frighteningly swollen knees and could not take care of himself. He asked someone to put a stool in front of the kang, spread the raincoat on the ground, study hard on the kang, move the urine and defecation from the kang to the stool, and then move it from the stool to the raincoat to untied it. After hearing the news, his wife who came from a hundred miles away couldn't help crying when she saw him like this.
Later, people were no longer able to do it. His wife asked him, "What are you thinking now?"
He opened his eyes with difficulty: "I just want to finish writing the outline of paper ."
In 2002, Dong Zexun, an engineer from the Prospecting Engineering Department, led a team into the Gobi Desert in Qinghai. The pebbles were everywhere, the drill cone was beating and the drill rod was swaying, and they could not get into it. Everyone lived and ate and lived on the construction site day and night. After 18 days, they invented the following pipe drilling: a pipe sleeve outside and a pipe inside, the sleeve was pressed in advance, and the drilling tool followed. Don’t underestimate this breakthrough: the problem of loose strata drilling that has always plagued the national geological community was solved in one fell swoop.
If the mineral search is to find a river, drilling is to cast a net to catch fish. With the basic exploration of shallow ore, the role of drilling becomes more critical. Like pipe drilling, the Sixth Brigade has always led the development of the same industry in the drilling field: in 2019, in the Battle of Shuiwangzhuang, the Sixth Brigade drilled and constructed 2,000 meters underground, but still could not reach the ore body. Aiming at 3,000 meters underground, they launched a tough attack. The missing formation sealing, the low life of diamond drill bit , the drilling is stuck... one after another, the technical problems of deep holes have been conquered one after another; small-diameter drilling is super-deep, ultra-diameter, ultra-slant... a number of national records have been refreshed one by one. This project has obtained 6 invention patents .
Today, the drilling depth in the industry generally does not exceed 500 meters, but the sixth brigade can reach 4,000 meters. The sixth brigade shot 367 and 93 deep wells above 1,500 meters and 2,000 meters respectively, and 3 of those above 3,000 meters. In the second National Drilling Skills Competition, three employees of the Sixth Team represented Shandong and won the first place in individual places, 5th and 9th respectively, and returned to the first place in the group.
"National drilling and visit Shandong, Shandong drilling and visiting the Sixth Brigade." Dong Zexun was hoarse and said with confidence. The hoarse throat was the mark left in his life when he was invented and drilled into the pipe: at that time, he was staring at the construction site for 18 consecutive days, and was so angry that his throat was so swollen that he could only use liquid food instead of food; after drilling, his throat could never return to the past.
Since its establishment, the Sixth Brigade has won 67 provincial and ministerial-level ore prospecting technology awards. With continuous breakthroughs in key breakthroughs, the sixth team's shooting rate is far ahead of its national peers in the venture capital of Tanjin, and it is not inferior to the world's highest level.
At least 10 exploration teams in the Laokou Mine Area in Rushanxi failed here, and the last one was the Sixth Brigade; a mine in Inner Mongolia found traces of gold mines when mining limonite ore , and several teams were invited to drill, but the conclusion was all unsolvable. Later, he found the Sixth Brigade and launched a 6-ton mine. Based on a ton of 400 million yuan, the investment of several million yuan was exchanged for 2.4 billion yuan; Australia's Aohua Company invested more than 5 million yuan in the Shuiwangzhuang Mine Deposit without any problems. The results were discouraged and transferred to the Sixth Team for 1 USD. The Sixth Team took them and found the large mines in succession. American experts came to the Sixth Team to observe and wanted to help the Sixth Team find the Mining. After visiting, they invited the Sixth Team to teach their experience...
"I have participated in more than 20 drilling projects, and basically all of them have found the mines." Fan Jiameng talked about this topic, tilted his head and thought hard, and he felt a little incredible, "I really have nothing to gain."
There are too many such things. Once there is a discussion on whether a certain place can find a mine in the same industry, the sixth brigade often uses the sixth brigade to "talk" -
"Other, "There are no other teams, but the sixth brigade is sure to go."
Or, "There are sixth brigades where there are gold mines, and there are sixth brigades where there are gold mines."
pays for
All minerals are generally generated in geological abnormalities. So there is a jargon in the geological world: mineral searches revolve around abnormalities.
Looking from another perspective, geological abnormalities are usually places where extreme tests are put forward.
People follow the project, and the six teams of people traveled across the country and even the world with extremely harsh environments.The reporter connected with several six teams of people outside the project and listened to them telling their working environment: Ma Xiaopeng, deputy director of the Western Office, is now at the Naxi construction site in Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai Province. After 400 kilometers of national highway (asphalt road), there is no fixed road. The remaining 90 kilometers have to cross mountains and ridges and pass through 4 rivers before reaching the camp. Zhang Peng from the Engineering Department of the Sudan Project Department is stationed at the edge of the "Sea of Death" Sahara Desert. The surface temperature is as high as 70 degrees. The eggs will cook after they are placed on the ground for a while. Dong Zexun's highest construction point is Kunlun Mountain at an altitude of 5,800 meters. Every time he climbs, his heart will feel pain. He seems to fall down at any time... In these harsh environments, six teams of people and worlds sweat for hulus and rivers. A project, at least a few months, or at most, is calculated in years.
Huang Tianliang is a member of the Sudan project department. After working in Sudan for 14 consecutive months, he returned to China in August this year to enjoy two months of vacation. Thousands of miles away, like everyone else, he can't help crying when he misses his family during festivals, and he will feel worried about his heart and sleepless all night long. For him, the two-month vacation was short and he soon embarked on a trip back to Africa. Although separation was common, he "never get used to it." Moreover, this time it was more different than ever - during the period of visiting relatives, his wife became pregnant.
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Captain Ding Zhengjiang told reporters a personal experience: in the Xinjiang mining area, he pulled up the mountain to take samples. Just after passing a mountain bag, there was a loud noise behind him, and half of the hillside collapsed. Once, someone suddenly screamed in shock. At some point, behind everyone, a lizard more than two meters long was lying. Many people have witnessed that a cow fell to the ground after it was bitten by it. Bao Zhongyi and his colleagues were taking samples in the forest. A horse's body suddenly blocked the way, and it was still steaming. He searched everywhere in fright, and a bear was running farther and farther away.
In the winter of 2015, the Qinghai mining area, which is more than 4,000 meters above sea level, was so remote that there was no mobile phone signal. Zhang Qibin, an engineer who just graduated from a master's degree the year before, has been here for several months. On this day, as usual, he went into the mountain with a young colleague to take samples. When I returned at noon, it started to snow heavily, and the six batteries specially equipped for GPS failed due to the cold. Amid the gravels all over the mountains, the two got lost and could only look at the compass and groping along the contour lines. According to experience, bypassing a mountain pass should be a camp, but it failed three times in a row. The two sat down and talked about the same topic: There were several geological team members in China who were lost in , Kekexili, and couldn't get out of it. Similarly, both of them were most impressed by this detail: the last thing the victim did before his death was to record the last passage for his relatives on his mobile phone. After the talk, the two continued to grop, without saying a word, anything was redundant. Suddenly, the two of them felt the ecstasy for the first time in their lives -
A river. There is only this river among the surrounding mountains. Seeing it means you will definitely find a camp by the river.
The members of the Sixth Team have some common "confused behaviors".
Don't take off your sweater. Adults need sweaters to base when they are in the alpine camp. In the summer of the summer, when people came down from the mountain, everyone was wearing short sleeves and sweating profusely, but the sixth team still couldn't take off their sweaters - the cold air was soaked in the body and they couldn't feel the heat at all. After staying at the foot of the mountain for a day, I felt that my sweater could not be worn anymore.
Hairdressing expert. The team members have been in a wilderness with few people over the years, so they can only bring their own tools to cut haircuts. They often have to give up their pursuit of hairstyles. There are only two types of mainstream hairstyles: flat heads and bald heads. In this way, team members who have been stationed abroad for a long time are often more popular - their haircutting skills are mostly good, and they can even make tricks such as short and round buzz cuts.
No taboos. Zhang Peng from the Sudan Project Department has been in the desert mining area for a year and has to eat vegetables. Only in towns nearly 100 kilometers away can it be found.The project teams who went to Xinjiang had mutton every meal. The team members who used to vomit when they smelled mutton could only give in... So no one asked the members of the Sixth Team if there was any taboo. The people of the Sixth Team did not have the capital to talk about taboo.
Li Kuan is the deputy director of the Prospecting Engineering Department of the Sixth Brigade. He is currently stationed in the depths of the mountains in Guizhou. You can still see equipment left over from different units scattered on the mountain. Before, the local team and several other teams from all over the country could not hold on to leave. This team from Jiaodong is called the "Plateau Iron Army" locally.
"Why can the Sixth Brigade always find gold mines? An important reason is that it can endure the most hardship." Li Kuan summarized this.
In the Sixth Brigade, every time there is a prospecting project, no matter how difficult the environment is, there is never any worry that no one will sign up, and there will always be someone who competes for it.
Why? Because for the people who are looking for gold in the Sixth Team, there is a simple belief: "If you can't find gold, it's a glorious thing." Zhang Yuzhi, who died prematurely due to overwork, once proposed to transfer him to the agency many times. He replied: "The task given to me by the country is to find gold. How can I find it if I leave the wild?"
"But in the final analysis, it is patriotism. Because of patriotism, everyone will willingly contribute. This is the most prominent gene of the sixth brigade's three generations of geological people. The current international and domestic situation is complex and severe, and the hearts of the sixth brigade's people are closer to the motherland." Ding Zhengjiang said, "We wrote a letter to the General Secretary to reassure the General Secretary: With the sixth brigade, we can play a greater role in the new round of mining breakthrough strategic action and better ensure the security of the country's energy and resources."
