Precious metal-containing mineral material is subjected to an acidic
thiocyanate leach to dissolve the precious metal as a precious
metal-thiocyanate complex. A feed of the thiocyanate leach solution may
include a large molar ratio of ferric iron to thiocyanate. Precious metal
may be removed from pregnant thiocyanate leach solution, such as by
transferring precious metal from precious metal-thiocyanate complex to
precious metal-cyanide complex and then loading the precious
metal-cyanide complex onto an adsorbent material. Remaining cyanide in
the thiocyanate leach solution may be converted to thiocyanate for
additional leaching of precious metal.