Gold Grade of Epithermal Gold Ore at Lamuntet, Brang Rea, West Sumbawa District, West Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia

摘要

Lamuntet is one of gold ore mining area carried out by the Artisanal Small scale Gold Mining (ASGM) located in West Sumbawa, Indonesia. Most of the miners at this area are not the local miners but also those from other regions. Mineralization of this area is strong identified as low sulfidation epithermal system. There are two blocks of this mining location, namely, Ngelampar block with an area of 0.164 km2 and Song block with an area of 0.067 km2. This study was focused on Ngelampar block. The characteristic of epithermal system is the existence of quartz vein with comb, vuggy, and sugary texture. The aim of this research was to analyze the gold grade and other metals, such as Cu, Ag, Pb, As, Zn, and Hg. The research methods included literature study from previous researches, field work, laboratory work, and interpretation. The literature study was performed on previous researches with similar study area. The field work comprised of direct observation and sampling. Fieldwork was done for a week to obtain gold ore/vein. Sixteen samples were analyzed to obtain the grade of ore/metal. The Hg laboratory analysis was then performed on the six samples with the highest gold grade. Laboratory works were conducted at Intertek Jakarta by using Fire Assay (FA) for gold grade and Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry (AAS) for Cu, Ag, Pb, As, Zn, and Hg. Results of the analysis showed the range of Au was grade (0.1 ppm - 27.8 ppm), Cu was 26 ppm -1740 ppm, Pb was 101 ppm->4000 ppm, Zn of 73 ppm ->10,000 ppm, Ag of 3 ppm -185 ppm, As was 150 ppm -6530 ppm, and Hg of 0.08 ppm -1.89 ppm. LI and L15 had high grade for all values (Au, Ag, Zn, Cu, As, and Hg). Gold mineralization was formed as electrum because of Ag content is higher than 20%. Associated minerals of the samples in the study area were galena, sphalerite, arsenopyrite, and chalcopyrite which showed the characteristic of rich base metal of Pb, Zn, and Cu at LS epithermal.