The super-giant Oyu Tolgoi porphyry copper-gold deposits in the South Gobi desert, Mongolia, consist of multiple discrete porphyry centers aligned within a north-northeast trending, >6.5 km long, arc-transverse mineralized corridor. The porphyries are linked to a tectono-magmatic event at ~372 Ma within a Devonian to Carboniferous volcanic arc, and U-Pb (zircon) geochronology records magmatic activity from ~390 Ma to ~320 Ma. The Oyu Tolgoi district underwent at least three discrete periods of syn- to post-mineral shortening and there is evidence for at least three unconformities within the Paleozoic sequence. Although the deposits were formed in an active orogenic environment characterized by rapid uplift, their preservation is a reflection of climactic effects as well insulation from erosion by rapid burial under mass-wasted and pyroclastic material in the volcaniclastic apron of late-mineral dacitic volcanoes. The porphyry copper-gold deposits are spatially and temporally related to medium- to high-K calc-alkaline quartz monzodiorite (~372 Ma) and granodiorite (~366 Ma) intrusive phases that comprise the Late Devonian Oyu Tolgoi Igneous Complex (OTIC). Adakite-like wholerock compositions as well as zircon grains with high CeN/CeN*, EuN/EuN* and Yb/Gd in the sample populations from syn- and late-mineral porphyry intrusions are different from younger intrusions that are not related to porphyry Cu-Au deposit formation. Moreover, mixed zircon populations within OTIC intrusions indicate that efficient assimilation of material from different host rocks by a convecting magma chamber occurred. Mafic to intermediate volcanic units evolved from tholeiitic to calc-alkaline compositions, which is interpreted to be a reflection of marine arc maturation and thickening. Felsic rock suites are dominantly high-K calc-alkaline, regardless of age. Nd-isotopic geochemistry from all suites is consistent with magma derivation from depleted mantle in an intra-oceanic volcanic arc and lead isotopic compositions indicate that the sulfides in the porphyry Cu-Au deposits are genetically linked to the Late Devonian magmas. Magma mixing, adakite-like magmatism and rapid uplift and erosion in a juvenile marine arc setting differentiate the ore-stage geologic environment at Oyu Tolgoi from other settings in active and fossil volcanic arcs. / Science, Faculty of / Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of / Graduate

Pioneer gold mine is 100 miles north of Vancouver in the Bridge River area of the Lillooet Mining Division, British Columbia. The mine has been worked extensively for more than 30 years and has produced over a million ounces of gold. The gold occurs in ribboned quartz veins which average less than three feet in width and are classified as mesothermal. The gold content of the veins is variable and it occurs, with a small amount of sulphides. Gold values greater than 0.5 oz. Au/Ton are considered economic. The Pioneer mine occurs in a northwesterly trending zone, called the Cadwallader Gold Belt, formed by the Hurley-Noel formation of sedimentary rocks and the Pioneer formation of volcanic rocks. The gold-quartz veins are genetically related to the Bralorne intrusions which occur within the rocks of this zone. There is a repetition of these formations in the Pioneer property, which can be explained by normal movement on a fault. A wide zone of serpentine marks the position of this fault, which is called the Cadwallader Break. This Break is a first order fault and can be related to second order faults formed during the same period of deformation. These second order faults are now occupied by quartz and form the veins which are mined. Planes of liquid inclusions in the quartz of the quartz veins have attitudes similar to those of the megascopic planes of rupture. These planes of inclusions were formed by the annealing of microscopic fractures in the quartz veins. The attitude of these fractures was determined by the same deformation which produced the megascopic fractures, including the 'Cadwallader Break'. The Bralorne intrusion in the mine area is composed of the Bralorne diorite and soda granite which contain albite as their only feldspar. No evidence has been formed to indicate that the intrusion is formed by the process of granitization. Sodic solutions, possibly parts of the final differentiate of the magma which formed the Bralorne intrusion have caused albitization of the intrusion and the Pioneer formation. / Science, Faculty of / Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of / Graduate

The use of gold in organic chemistry is a relatively recent occurrence. In addition to being previously considered too expensive, it was also believed to be chemically inert. Soon after the early reports indicating its rich reactivity, the number of reports on chemical transformations involving gold sky rocketed. One such report by Toste and coworkers demonstrated the intramolecular addition of silyl enol ether onto Au(I) activated alkynes, resulting in a 5-exo dig cyclization. The first part (Chapter 1) of this thesis discusses the development of a Au(I) catalyzed polycyclization reaction inspired by this transformation. The reaction demonstrated the ability of Au(I) to successfully catalyze the formation of multiple C-C bonds and resulted in the synthesis of benzothiophenes, benzofurans, carbazoles and hydrindene. With the current resurgence of photochemical transformations being reported in literature, various opportunities for the use of Au(I) complexes arose. The substantial relativistic effect observed in gold which make it a good soft Lewis acid also has a significant influence on the redox potential of this metal. Chapter 3 of this thesis discusses the development of a Au(I) photocatalyzed process which benefits from having both a strong oxidation and reduction potential for the reduction of carbon-halide bonds. Radical reductions and cyclizations were accessed with the use of polynuclear Au(I) photocatalysts. In depth analysis of catalytically active Au(I) complexes helped elucidate the mechanism by which this photochemical reaction occurs. This part (Chapter 4) also covers serendipitously discovered uncatalyzed photochemical transformations derived from our work with gold. The halogenation reaction of primary alcohols was successfully achieved and a combination of our developed methods resulted in an efficient dehydroxylation protocol.

This thesis is a dissertation to support the development of new domino pericyclic oxy-Cope/ene/Claisen/Diels-Alder reaction, diversity oriented synthesis of PPAPs scaffold via sequential one pot cascade reaction and ethyl aluminum sesquichloride catalyzed highly hindered Diels-Alder reaction. The first part concentrates on the domino pericyclic oxy-Cope/ene/Claisen/Diels-Alder reaction. As a result of this study, we have developed a general methodology for rapidly constructing complex diterpenes and discovered a thermal oxy-Cope/ene/Claisen/Claisen rearrangement, applied to the synthesis of trans decalin benzofurans. The second part involved the development of an efficient synthetic approach towards bicyclo[3.3.1]nonenone core found in many natural products, via a sequential Diels-Alder/gold(I)-catalyzed 6-endo-dig cyclization and its application to the synthesis of a diversified library of PPAPs. Finally, we have developed an efficient synthetic methodology for the formation of cyclohexene rings bearing quaternary carbon centers via an ethyl aluminum sesquichloride mediated highly hindered Diels-Alder reaction. This method solved an important problem encountered in the synthesis of many natural products including PPAPs. This methodology opened new opportunities in the total synthesis of PPAPs.

The objective of the Diploma Thesis entitled Gold market analysis and the influence of commodities on portfolio diversification is to provide an insight to commodities as an investment asset class. This goal is tackled by the first and the second chapter. The first chapter provides theoretical support for commodities as a distinct asset, whereas the second chapter is focused on investors opportunities to obtain economic exposure to commodity assets on current financial markets. When introducing the commodity products, main focus is set on the gold market. The second objective of the Diploma Thesis is to analyze the gold market and gold added value for the investors. The structure of both supply and demand for gold is analyzed. Demand and supply are identified as the main gold price drivers. The thesis confirms that the main added value of gold as an asset lies in its addition to a portfolio of capital assets. Gold significantly improves diversification of the portfolio, protects the portfolio from inflation as well as from the economic event risk. On the contrary, in comparison to capital assets gold is not an perspective stand alone investment. The last objective of the thesis is to analyze the diversification potential of commodity indexes within a portfolio context. The last chapter is devoted to this objective. The chapter introduces commodity indexes as an investible product and analyses the influence of a selected commodity index being added to a portfolio of capital assets on the efficient investment frontier. It is shown that not only is the commodity index not a good diversification tool but the investors would be better off by selling it short.

In the canyon where the Fraser River flows through the Cascade mountains, migrating salmon supported a large, dense native population. By 1850 the Hudson’s Bay Company had several forts on other parts of the Fraser River and its tributaries but found the canyon itself inaccessible. Prior to the gold rush, whites rarely ventured there. Discoveries of gold in Fraser River in 1856 drew the attention of outsiders and a rush of miners, and led eventually to permanent white settlement on mainland British Columbia. Contrary to much historiography, these were not foregone results. Instead, the gold rush was a complex process of negotiation and conflict among competing groups as they sought to profit from gold discoveries. The Hudson’s Bay Company sought to gain and retain control of the resource by incorporating it into its trade and by excluding outsiders. But miners arrived by the thousands, and the Company was forced to try to regulate miners’ access to the resource. However, as a group, miners were cohesive and self-reliant; they had little need for outside intervention. The Hudson’s Bay Company was unable to regulate them while pursuing its own ideas of profit. The British government subsequently revoked the Hudson Bay Company’s trade license, and proclaimed British Columbia a colony. In efforts to impose its own ideals of order on the gold fields, the government introduced a new colonial administration which, following a chain of command extending from London through Victoria to the Fraser, sought to organize the population in the spaces of the Fraser Canyon. Government authority was reinforced by the legal system’s flexible responses to the diverse population’s activities it deemed illegal. By studying the interactions of natives, miners, traders, administrators, and the legal system, I have attempted to untangle the ways in which white men negotiated their particular racist and masculinist ideals and sought to impose them in the spaces of the Fraser Canyon. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

The thesis "Analysis of Performance of Investment Metals and Coins" deals with the evolution of prices of gold, silver, platinum and palladium. It analyzes factors which have an influence on the prices of these metals. It compares profitability and risk of the investment in gold with the index S&P 500. The strength of dependency is measured by coefficient of correlation between the variables gold and silver/ palladium/ platinum/ brent crude oil/ index S&P 500/prices of the mining company Randgold Resources Ltd. The third part of the thesis deals with the means of investing in the investment metals and it compares the advantages and disadvantages of each option.

The main focus of this thesis is gold as an investment option among commodity asset class. The goal is to present the facts that rate gold as an investing instrument and create recommendations for the standard 'middle-class' investors setting up their portfolio. The first chapter discusses the pillars determining the market value of gold, the pros and cons of investing into gold, and specific forms of how investments into gold can be done. The second chapter analyzes how gold is ranked in the awareness of ordinary people. It also describes the phases in the process of creating investment portfolio. In the last chapter, there is comparison of investment into gold versus other main commodities and how they compete.

Two major topics that involve synthetic strategies to enhance the phosphorescence of organic and inorganic luminophores have been investigated. The first topic involves, the photophysical and photochemical properties of the gold (I) complexes LAuIX (L = CO, RNC where R = alkyl or aryl group; X = halide or pseudohalide), which have been investigated and found to exhibit Au-centered phosphorescence and tunable photochemical reactivity. The investigations have shown a clear relationship between the luminescence energies and association modes. We have also demonstrated for the first time that aurophilic bonding and the ligand p-acceptance can sensitize the photoreactivity of Au(I) complexes. The second topic involves conventional organic fluorophores (arenes), which are made to exhibit room-temperature phosphorescence that originates from spin-orbit coupling owing to either an external or internal heavy atom effect in systematically designed systems that contain d10 metals. Facial complexation of polycyclic arenes to tris[{m-(3,4,5,6-tetrafluorophenylene)}mercury(II)], C18F12Hg3 (1) results in crystalline adducts that exhibit bright RGB (red-green-blue) phosphorescence bands at room temperature. This arene-centered phosphorescence is always accompanied by a reduction of the triplet excited state lifetime due to its sensitization by accelerating the radiative instead of the non-radiative decay. The results of both topics are significant for rational design of efficient metal and arene-centered phosphors for molecular light emitting diodes in addition to the fundamental novelties in inorganic chemistry and molecular spectroscopy.

There were two international standards in the nineteenth century, the theoretical gold standard and the historical sterling standard. The primary interest of this thesis is the latter, although the theoretical framework of the gold standard will also be examined. Because of its role in the London money market, particular attention will be given to the Bank of England. Since the Bank and the international standards were products of the evolutionary and revolutionary changes which occurred in Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, an attempt will be made to examine them within their historical context.