Hyrum Briscoe

Mining Geology and Gold Deposits of Wells

Mining. The backbone of modern society. Our phones, our cars, oil, and anything that isn't grown are all mined from the Earth's crust. Mining may just be the oldest career path in geology, and it is certainly one of the most essential. Valued at $792 billion as of 2024, the mining industry is enormous, and fortunately, it will always require geologists.

The February 13, 2025, seminar, hosted by the BYU Department of Geological Sciences, featured guest speaker and field expert Hyrum Briscoe, as well as his coworker Trent Taylor. Briscoe currently works as a mining geologist at Osisko Development on what is called the Tintic Project. He graduated from Weber State University with a bachelor's degree in geology before receiving a master's degree in geology with a specific focus on structural geology at Brigham Young University. After graduating from Weber State University, Briscoe began his career at Mckay Mineral Exploration, a small company specializing in mineral exploration and exploration geology. He would go on to work for Osisko Development, where he has worked both in Utah and in Canada.

Briscoe started his first job as a professional geologist at Mckay Mineral Exploration. He and the team were involved in the field of exploration geology, which included claim staking, soil sampling, core drilling and logging, and collecting sample bags. During the seminar, he went into detail about each of these processes that exploration geologists typically use, explaining both the mechanics and the purpose. Claim staking involves carrying a heavy bag of stakes around that can be hammered into the ground in order to designate a claim to potential mineral locations on private land. This can eventually lead to permission to begin an extraction site at the designated location. While claim staking gets easier as the stakes deplete and the load lessens, soil sampling is the opposite, where the load increases as soil samples are collected from digging down into the earth, creating a representation of what soils are feeding into the area. This is the first step in determining the location of mineral deposits that can be mined and extracted. It also gives geologists valuable data in creating accurate maps that indicate where deposits are located and what the layers of the ground look like.

Briscoe also shed light on the process of collecting core samples from the earth through drilling. He told the story of his experience in Idaho, when he and the team were flown out in a helicopter to the remote location in order to see if there was high carbonate limestone for a local cement plant. They used a Shaw drill, a small portable drill that doesn't require permitting, which allowed for them to collect small samples that gave them all of the information that they needed, confirming that there was indeed high carbonate limestone. He then explained two other types of drilling processes used by geologists to extract core samples: the recirculation drill, which is cheaper and faster but offers less data, and the core drill, which, though more expensive and time-consuming, gives far more extensive data that is clearer and more informative.

The seminar finished with a showcase of the two current projects that Briscoe works on at Osisko Development. The first is a massive enterprise located in central British Columbia, Canada, dubbed the Cariboo Gold Project. Built on a historic mining site dating back to 1869, the Cariboo project covers an area of nearly 475,000 acres with an 80-kilometer strike of mineral targets. It's projected that the operation will produce approximately 1.87 million ounces of gold annually for the next twelve years. The second project is called the Tintic Project, under the same parent company of Osisko Development. It's located approximately 95 kilometers south of Salt Lake City within the East Tintic Mining District, and Osisko is currently focused on a target called Trixie, which produces high-grade gold, among other things. On both projects, Briscoe spends much of his time working with mining crews underground and collecting samples of ore and material that he later logs.

Thanks to the hard work and expertise of professionals like Hyrum Briscoe, we live in a world of marvelous technology and commodities that enrich our lives. The watches we wear, the phones we use to communicate with, appliances, computers, buildings, and cars—all of it comes from the mining industry.

Where would we be without mining?