Mining-Prospecting Dictionary

• Parting: Fire assay procedure for separating gold from other metals.
• Patent: A title deed to a mining property.
• Pay streak: A layer or channel within a gravel deposit that contains a much higher average gold content that the surrounding gravels.
• Permeable: Pertaining to a rock or soil having a texture that permits passage of liquids or gases under the pressure ordinarily found in earth materials.
• Phenocryst: A porphyritic crystal inclusion.
• Pig: Common term for an ingot of cast metal.
• Pillar: Column of ore left for roof support in underground workings.
• Pinched: Narrowed portion of a vein or ore body.
• Pipe: A pipe-like ore body or rock formation; a diamond pipe.
• Pitch: Refers to the relative angle of slope or dip of an ore deposit.
• Pitting: Digging test pits for sampling gravels.
• Placer: Any concentration of the heavier and more durable minerals that has resulted from the combined actions of erosional forces.
• Placer mining: Mining sand and gravel deposits for their mineral content.
• Porosity: The relative quantity of holes or openings in a substance.
• Position Limit: The maximum position, either net long or net short, in one metal future or in all futures of one metal combined which may be held or controlled by one person as prescribed by an exchange or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
• Precipitate: The material that settles from a liquid solution when a particular substance is added to the solute.
• Pregnant Pond: Pond containing solution which has percolated through the ore on a heap leach. The solution is impregnated with gold and silver removed from the ore.
• Premium: In gold bullion, the amount by which the market value of a gold coin or bar exceeds the actual value of its gold content. Part of the premium is recovered by the seller at resale. In options, the price of the option.
• Primary: The original or unaltered form.
• Prospecting: The search for valuable mineral deposits.
• Proven ore: Material for which tonnage and grade are computed from dimensions revealed in outcrops, trenches, underground workings or drill holes; grade is computed from the results of ade quate sampling; and the sites for inspection, sampling and measurement are so spaced and the geological character so well defined that size, shape and mineral content are established.
• Probable ore: Material for which tonnage and grade are computed partly from specific measurements, samples or production data and partly from projection for a reasonable distance on geological evidence; and for which the sites available for inspection, measurement and sampling are too widely or otherwise inappropriately spaced to outline the material completely or to establish its grade throughout.
• Put Option: An option that gives the option buyer the right but not the obligation to sell the underlying futures contract at a particular price on or before a particular date.
• Pyrite: A common, pale-bronze or brass-yellow, isometric mineral. It is dimorphous with marcasite, and often contains small amounts of other metals. Pyrite has a brilliant metallic luster and an absence of cleavage, and has been mistaken for gold. Pyrite is the most wide-spread and abundant of the sulfide minerals and occurs in all kinds of rocks, such as in nodules in sedimentary rocks and coal seams or as a common vein material associated with many different minerals.
• Pyritization: Introduction of , or replacement by, pyrite; e.g. the replacement of the original material of the hard parts of certain fossil animals and plants by pyrite. Pyritization is a common process of hydrothermal alteration and often involves the introduction of fine-grained pyrite disseminated as specks in rock adjacent to veins.