Jean-Paul Turcaud dies aged 80

[Jeßus]

Regardless of his endless rants on Usenet for decades, he seemed like
a decent bloke. At least he can RIP now.


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Pilbara prospector Jean-Paul Turcaud dies aged 80 taking another gold
discovery to his grave

A French prospector who claimed to have uncovered a huge deposit,
which later became a multi-million-dollar gold mine, has gone to his
grave with the secrets of another big find.

Jean-Paul Turcaud died this week in a hospital in La Rochelle in
south-western France, a world away from the harsh Pilbara desert in
the north-west of Western Australia.

Western Australian author Bob Sheppard wrote the story of Jean-Paul
Turcaud, which was published in 2002.

"I was very upset to receive a message from his lovey wife, Martine,
telling me that he had passed away rather quickly in a hospital in La
Rochelle in France," Mr Sheppard said.

Mr Sheppard said the story of Mr Turcaud was one of the saddest he had
known.

Fifty years ago he found a mineral deposit that later became the
Telfer gold mine.

"He came to Australia in the late 1960s. He was actually a soldier in
the French army for a while," Mr Sheppard said.

"I think he came over here to sort of get away from some of his
experiences."

Mr Turcaud bought an old Land Rover and decided to go prospecting in
the Patterson Range area of the Great Sandy Desert in 1970.

"He thought that was an area that hadn't really been explored," Mr
Sheppard said.

"When he got out there he was pretty well amazed at what he
discovered."

Undiscovered wonders in the harshness of the desert
He found an area, which he named Pascale Hills after his sister, that
contained a huge amount of mineralisation. To Mr Turcaud, this meant
there was a good copper or base metal deposit in the region.

"He wasn't concentrating on gold at that time because gold was only
worth about US$35 an ounce back in 1970," Mr Sheppard said.

"He was really excited about copper. Base metals were really important
at that stage.

"After his trip to the desert, he went to Marble Bar but didn't have
enough money to get back out there to peg the claim."

He trusted too many people, Mr Sheppard said.

"He told too many people about what he'd discovered.

"He spoke to mining company Newmont [now Newcrest] and he told them
what he'd discovered.

"They said 'Oh no, we're not interested'. But within a couple of years
they'd pegged all the ground and claimed they'd found the deposit
without any input from Jean-Paul Turcaud."

He kept fighting for recognition
Mr Turcaud spent many years fighting for recognition that he had found
the claim, with little success.

Mr Sheppard said in the early 1980s Mr Turcaud did manage to get a few
thousand dollars from Newmont.

"He wanted people to say 'OK, we agree that you found the Telfer Gold
Mine' but there was no interest in doing that and I think people were
too scared to give him any credit for it because it might sort of lead
to some sort of compensation payment," Mr Sheppard said.

"I think it's really sad the way he was treated."

Not the only discovery
Mr Sheppard said when he was interviewing Mr Turcaud for his book, he
spoke about another deposit he had also found.

"He found another deposit, which he described as Telfer's sister. He
said this was a huge gold deposit and he went into some description
about what he saw," Mr Sheppard said.

"But he said 'I'm never ever going to tell anybody where I found it'.

"At this stage he hated Australia and Australian companies and
government so much that he said why should they get the benefit of
this other discovery and I'll take that the location of that gold mine
discovery to my grave.

"And he did that, he never ever revealed the location."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-20/pilbara-gold-prospecting-pioneer-jean-paul-turcaud-dies/12575010?#desktop

[the lesbians]

I for one will miss him...he was such a sensitive lover.