Vancouver expo attracts many gem and mineral enthusiasts

Before they can strike it rich, every prospector needs to find some color in their pay. And the color they're hoping for is -- gold.

On Friday, a gold-panning instructor and miner called Dan Moore set up a station at the Vancouver Gem and Mineral Show and brought in some dirt from the Yukon Territory in northern Canada.

He said while much of the British Columbia mining industry is in a slump, gold remains popular with prospectors and investors.

Right now, the price of gold is hovering around 1,250 U.S. dollars per ounce. The price has been climbing, but still has a long way to go before matching the all-time high of 1,900 U.S. dollars in 2011.

The expo brings together gem and mineral collectors and sellers - as well as jewelry-makers, and geology experts.

Andy Randell, Below BC executive director, said British Columbia is part of the mineral rich Pacific Rim. Roughly 200 million years ago, Pacific island chains began smashing into the west coast of North America creating a mineral hot-spot.

"And as those islands come together, the heat and the pressure is melting the rock and allowing all these fluids to circulate and that's how we get the minerals that we find in B.C. these days," Randell told Xinhua in an interview.

He said British Columbia has been known around the world as a place where miners could strike it rich since the middle of the 19th century and Canada is still one of the major gold producing countries in the world.

"We had the gold rushes back in the 1850s onwards. And that still happens today, gold is still a big thing here. But it also brought in copper, things like zinc, lead, silver - and then jade, which in a slightly differently way formed, but it's another precious stone that forms especially up in northern B.C," he said.

The Vancouver Gem and Mineral Show is now in its second year. They plan to hold the three-day expo twice a year to make it a regular and well-known event in the city. Endi