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A surprising twist in Montserrat’s geothermal story emerged in the Thursday morning session of the SHV30 Conference. There’s not just power beneath the earth, but gold.
There have long been rumors that there was gold to be found in Montserrat and now it is backed by science. However, we are a long way from drilling for gold, caution the scientists.
“This was just for fun, really,” said Dr Graham Ryan, Director of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory. “A colleague asked, ‘you got anything interesting that I can blast some neutrons at?’ And we have some core samples. So let’s see what happens if we do that.”
Using neutron activation analysis, Ryan’s team bombarded samples from Montserrat’s geothermal wells with neutrons to identify trace elements. “We saw the gold peak, and we saw that in a number of samples,” he said.
Gold was found at concentrations ranging from 2 to 24 parts per million. “Those samples that produced gold were only the carbonate,” he noted. “The igneous samples didn’t indicate the presence of any gold.”
Ryan said the findings echo known patterns in other geothermal systems. “Epi-thermal deposits often have sulphur-bearing gangue minerals such as pyrite,” he said. “Sulphur acts as a primary ligand for transport of gold in aqueous solution.”
The core samples, retrieved from MON-3 between depths of 1,478 and 2,100 metres, included a carbonate-rich interval not previously considered significant. “What we noted was those samples that produced gold were only the carbonate. And we also see in sample 23, there’s also a bit of pyrite as well.”
He emphasised that the analysis was rigorous. “Gold-197 is readily detectable by this technique because there are no close photo peaks. So there’s nothing to interfere with it. And the half-life is 2.7 days, so relatively easy to be very sure what you’re looking at.”
Could this be commercially viable? That’s still uncertain. “We don’t have enough data to declare an ore body,” Ryan said. “But it raises the possibility that there may be epithermal gold deposits elsewhere on the island, maybe even more accessible than at 2.1 kilometres down.”
Professor Blundy – ReSET
New Zealand’s Geothermal Insight
Professor John Blundy, Director of the Rethinking Natural Resources programme from Oxford University, who has worked extensively in New Zealand, shared insight into how geothermal systems can be “valorised”, – how value can be extracted not just through energy but also from the fluid itself.
“The key thing that we’ve learned from our work in New Zealand is that these geothermal systems are very, very efficient at concentrating metals,” said Blundy. “And there are examples in geothermal fields around the world, New Zealand, the Philippines, Kenya, and elsewhere, where metal scales form in the pipework because the metal concentrations are so high.”
In the Taupō Volcanic Zone, the world’s most active geothermal system, New Zealand has gone beyond heat and electricity. “These geothermal systems have the potential to act as low-carbon, sustainable, mineral sources. You can extract metals such as lithium, gold, silver, antimony, arsenic, tellurium, and copper from the fluids.”
Dr. Blundy explained that this requires seeing geothermal projects as more than just energy solutions. “You’re essentially running geothermal energy systems as mining operations,” he said.
But it’s not just about extracting more. It’s about using the whole resource efficiently. “If you look at it in terms of value, the energy is at the bottom of the pyramid. The energy is cheap, and it’s ubiquitous,” he said. “But the further you go up the pyramid, direct heat use, critical minerals, hydrogen, you find higher-value applications.”
The New Zealand example underscores the need for an integrated approach. “You need legislation. You need regulation. You need financial structures. You need pilot plants. You need partnerships. It’s not something a single scientist or even a single country can do alone,” he said.
ReSET work on Montserrat
Montserrat in ReSET
Blundy is leading an FCDO and Darwin-funded project, ReSET, to assess how Montserrat can tap into the full potential of the volcano beyond geothermal energy.
“We are working with the Montserrat Volcano Observatory and other local partners to analyse geothermal fluids and cores,” he revealed. “We’re particularly interested in how saline geofluids interact with carbonate rocks, because those are the chemical conditions where metals tend to concentrate.”
This complements Dr Graham Ryan’s earlier findings, where neutron activation analysis identified gold at ore-grade concentrations in the carbonate-bearing cores from Montserrat’s MON-3 well.
Blundy pointed out that fluids rich in chloride, like those found in Montserrat, are especially efficient at transporting metals. “The deep geothermal fluids in Montserrat are hot, saline, and potentially saturated with critical elements like lithium, antimony, tellurium, and possibly gold,” he said.
The RESET project (Resource Extraction from Saline Earthbound Thermal systems) is not about large-scale mining in the traditional sense. “We’re not talking about open-pit mining,” Blundy clarified. “We’re talking about fluid-mining extracting value from the same geothermal fluids used to generate electricity.”
This approach presents an opportunity for Montserrat to create an integrated energy-and-minerals platform. “You already have the infrastructure: you’re drilling wells, pumping fluids, monitoring temperatures and chemistry,” Blundy said. “Why not get everything out of that fluid stream? Energy, heat, minerals. It’s circular by design.”
Dr. Alicia Elias-Roberts, Dean, Faculty of Law at UWI St. Augustine Campus, pointed out that this dual potential of power and minerals requires forward-thinking regulation. “There is a project looking at the feasibility of extracting valuable raw minerals such as lithium and other minerals from the geothermal fluids,” she said. “You need a legal framework that’s going to be able to govern that.”
The implications for the confirmed discovery are big. When asked if there were previous reports of gold in Montserrat, Dr. Ryan responded: “I haven’t seen it. I would like to see it. But certainly, we seem to have found gold in some carbonate.”
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