Where do you guys/girls think mining is headed?

I am kind of leaning towards a more inflationary view and think long-term GOLD wouldnt be too bad.

I say that mostly based at global inflation at heart, the heavy depreciation of the dollar, the continued depeciation of the dollar due to foriegn countries slashing their dollar holdings, among other things.

Id say this might hold for 3 years, give or take a year.

Hmm, I was thinking gold for maybe another year; interesting to see another point of view. What about copper and zinc?

Personally, I think copper will continue upwards because it's used extensively in construction (China and other emerging markets)

But I really don't have a clue about zinc. Haha.

wait till BHP Billiton takes Rio Tinto and see what happens to commodity prices (not really gold, but iron ore etc)

Well look at zinc prices vs production costs, it's becoming less economically viable to keep the mine open, and articles are already coming out that firms with zinc mines are looking to close them. Articles even stated that zinc prices need to be above $1 at least to keep a large enough profit margin to recover the initial capex.

So wouldn't the increasing number of mines closing drive the prices up for zinc; thus increasing the profit for the mines that actually continue?