Investigation into the Reprocessing of Elsa Tailings

Investigation into the Reprocessing of Elsa Tailings is an open dataset from Government of Yukon with 3 files (HTML, PDF); catalogue record updated 2026-08-26. On CanQuery you can follow the original downloads.

This project was undertaken to evaluate the potential to economically recover additional metal values from the 4.6 million tons of Keno Hill flotation tailings which grades 3-4 oz/t silver, 0.8% lead and 0.9% zinc. The study determined that the higher grade portion of the tailing, containing some 1.0 million tons at 5.35 oz/t Ag, responds well to cyanide heap leaching with a silver recovery of 50-60%. The testing data suggests that heap leaching is economically feasible at the current silver price of $US5.50/ounce and a currency exchange rate of 1.35 in favour of the US dollar. The response to gravity and flotation concentration was poor.

Publisher

Government of Yukon

Resources

3

Catalogue metadata updated

2026-08-26