Your geochemists were essentially correct, but the details are far more interesting. Given that you were prospecting for placers, that’s okay, they are just gold sitting in stream deposits. But the veins themselves are far more complex. I should take the time to write an essay such as you have provided before on navigation to explain the subtleties of ore deposition.

I just read it. NOW I think I’ll light one up.

Then compare and contrast to another, but bi-partisan, white paper of the same era (which Bush the younger threw in the bin until after 9/11):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Commission_on_National_Security/21st_Century

Focus on military strategies, versus diplomatic strategies

PNAC fellow Reuel Marc Gerecht stated:

“We have no choice but to re-instill in our foes and friends the fear that attaches to any great power…. Only a war against Saddam Hussein will decisively restore the awe that protects American interests abroad and citizens at home”.

- from the Wikipedia article on the Project for a New American Century

awe–>shock and awe–>intimidation and coercion for political ends–>Terrorism–>naked aggression–>imperialism.

Thanks for turning me on to PNAC, Pod. I can’t believe the Neocons actually had the balls to put it all down in writing and then sign their names to it.

But I think I’d bore y’all to tears.

Back when I was doing mineral prospecting with remote sensing, the way it was explained to me by the geochemists was that rock would fracture, and superheated water with metals and silicates in solution would be forced through the cracks. As the rock cooled, the solutes would crystallize, and later be exposed by erosion at the surface. We were looking for gold ore in alluvial fans and talus slopes in Nevada by looking at their reflection spectra in the infrared.

As for the economic imperialism reference, it is no longer necessary to simply steal resources and markets at gunpoint. No one cheats at the game anymore, the trick now is to simply make sure the rules are rigged ahead of time so that they favor your side. In other words, you don’t go to another country, occupy it and steal their oil. You just make sure they sell it to the highest bidder on the world market. I.e., the oil will always be available at a price determined solely by market forces, and will be consumed where people can afford to pay for it. It really doesn’t matter which country gets it and how much they pay for it, it only matters that the companies involved get to compete against each other in a game they understand, and where they have all the advantages.

A couple of points:

I’ve brought it up before, but the Project for the New American Century outlined the areas of the world that needed to be brought into democratic capitalism in order to secure American dominance as the sole super-power. They defined a belt of the lower latitudes as the target of their desired efforts, areas that are not dominated by Caucasians.

To pursue the geologic metaphor, the ultimate cause of an earthquake is differential stress. If pressure is applied from all directions, no big deal. It is when stress is un-equal that deformation occurs. Under some conditions, the deformation is elastic, plastic, or brittle. High confining pressures keep the deformation ductile. While great changes occur over time, they are not technically failure of the rock. When the rock is brittle, or the stress is applied quickly, failure occurs.

This failure begins at a single point (the hypocenter) and spreads outward along a predictable plane, forming a ellipsoidal area of slip, which eventually dies out. I suppose the start of WWI fits this metaphor.

I’m still considering this idea, formulating some ideas, and hope to comment more thoughtfully when I have time.

“The Invisible Man, huh?” her boss replied, then shook his head. “Tell him I can’t see him.”