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Encyclopedia > Gold mining
Gold bearing quartz veins in Alaska
Gold bearing quartz veins in Alaska
"Gold mine" redirects here. See Goldmine for other uses of the term.

Gold mining consists of the processes and techniques employed in the removal of gold from the ground. There are several techniques by which gold may be extracted from earth and rock: Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... The term goldmine could refer to: Gold mining, the extraction of gold, usually from rock or sediment Goldmine (magazine), a music collectables magazine GoldMine, a customer relationship management software package Goldmine (album), the first CD from Silvia Night. ... The related terms resource extraction and Resource extraction industry both refer to the practice of locating, acquiring and selling any resource, but typically a natural resource. ... GOLD refers to one of the following: GOLD (IEEE) is an IEEE program designed to garner more student members at the university level (Graduates of the Last Decade). ...

Contents

Placer (Sediment) mining

Image File history File links Mergefrom. ... GOLD CRADLE During the gold rush, if seven or eight pans figured to the cubic foot,if a man working hard and long hours, could wash a ton and a half or two tons of material a day. ...

Panning

Gold panning is a mostly manual technique of sorting gold. Wide, shallow pans are filled with sand and gravel that may contain gold. Water is added and the pans are shaken, sorting the gold from the gravel and other material. Gold being much denser than rock, quickly settles to the bottom of the pan. The silt is usually removed from stream beds, often at a bend in the stream, or resting on the bedrock bed of the stream, where the weight of gold causes it to separate out of the water flow. This type of gold found in streams or dry streams are called placer deposits. Miners operate a hydraulic sluice in San Francisquito Canyon, Los Angeles County. ...


Gold panning is the easiest technique for searching for gold, but is not commercially viable for extracting gold from large deposits, except where labor costs are very low and/or gold traces are very substantial. It is often marketed as a tourist attraction on former goldfields. Before production methods can be used, a new source must be identified and panning is a good way to identify placer gold deposits so that they may be evaluated for commercial viability.


Metal detecting

A new small scale technique using Metal detectors for finding gold. Using a piece of electronic equipment, called a metal detector, a person may walk around area systematically scanning below the surface. If the meter gives a positive reading a quantity of gold may be present up to a meter below the surface being scanned at the time. This technique is very easy to operate, highly mobile, and very popular by illegal gold diggers. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Inductive sensor. ...


Sluicing

Using a sluice box to extract gold from placer deposits has been a common practice in prospecting and small-scale mining throughout history to the modern day. A sluice box is essentially a man-made channel with riffles set in the bottom. The riffles are designed to create dead zones in the current to allow gold to drop out of suspension. The box is placed in the stream to catch water-flow and gold bearing material is placed at the top of the box. The material is carried by water through the box where gold and other heavy material settles out behind the riffles. Lighter material flows out of the box as tailings. Miners operate a hydraulic sluice in San Francisquito Canyon, Los Angeles County. ...


Dredging

Although mostly historical, some dredging is done by small scale miners using suction dredges. These are small machines floating on the water and are usually operated by one or two people. Unlike the old bucket line dredges, modern suction dredges have little to no detrimental impact on the area being mined. These machines are much more efficient at extracting smaller gold than the old "bucket line" ever was. This means there is a better chance of you finding gold than ever. There are some large suction dredges (100 hp+ 10 inch)used in commercial production throughout the world. Smaller ones with 2 to 4 inch suction tubes are used to sample the areas behind boulders and along the potential pay streaks, until color (gold) first appears.


Hydraulic mining

Hydraulic mining is a type of placer mining used in areas where large amounts of loose gravel and sand or soil are poorly packed and may be washed away with a heavy stream of water. Fire hoses (Water cannons) are sometimes used to strip away entire hills of loose gravel, which are then run through a sluice (a wooden trough with riffles). Gold, being heavier, does not move as easily as other material in the sluice. This technique can damage the environment, causing mud in streams below the mining site and erosion damage at the site itself. Hydraulic mining, or hydraulicking, is a form of mining that employs water under pressure to dislodge rock material or move sediment. ... Miners operate a hydraulic sluice in San Francisquito Canyon, Los Angeles County. ...


Hard rock mining

Hard rock mining at the Associated Gold Mine, Kalgoorlie, 1951
Hard rock mining at the Associated Gold Mine, Kalgoorlie, 1951

Hard rock gold mining is done when the gold is encased in rock, rather than as particles in loose sediment. Sometimes open-pit mining is used, such as the Ft. Knox Mine in central Alaska. Barrick Gold Corporation has one of the largest open-pit gold mines in North America, located on its Goldstrike property in northeastern Nevada. Other gold mines use underground mining, where the ore is extracted through tunnels or shafts. Hard rock mining produces most of the world's gold. Image File history File links Associated_Gold_Mine_Kalgoorlie_1951. ... Image File history File links Associated_Gold_Mine_Kalgoorlie_1951. ... El Chino, located near Silver City, New Mexico, is an open-pit copper mine Open-pit mining, or opencast mining, refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow. ... Official language(s) None[1] Spoken language(s) English 85. ... Barrick Gold Corporation TSX: ABX NYSE: ABX is a leading international gold mining company with its headquarters in Toronto, Ontario. ... This article is about the U.S. State of Nevada. ...


Byproduct gold mining

Gold is also produced by mining in which it is not the principal product. Large copper mines, such as the Bingham Canyon mine in Utah, often recover considerable amounts of gold and other metals along with the copper. Some sand and gravel pits, such as those around Denver, Colorado, may recover small amounts of gold in their washing operations. The Bingham Canyon Mine is an open-pit mine extracting a large porphyry copper deposit southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, in the Oquirrh Mountains. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... Nickname: Location of Denver in Colorado Location of Colorado in the United States Coordinates: , Country State Founded [1] November 22, 1858 Incorporated November 7, 1861 Government  - Type Strong Mayor/Weak Council  - Mayor John Hickenlooper (D) Area [1]  - City & County  154. ...


Gold Ore Processing

In placer mines, the gold is recovered by gravity separation. For hardrock mining, other methods are usually used.


Cyanide process

Main article: Gold cyanidation

Cyanide extraction of gold may be used in areas where fine-gold bearing rocks are found. Sodium cyanide solution is mixed with finely-ground rock that is proven to contain gold and/or silver, and is then separated from the ground rock as gold cyanide and/or silver cyanide solution. Zinc is added to the solution, precipitating out residual zinc, as well as the desirable silver and gold metals. The zinc is removed with sulphuric acid, leaving a silver and/or gold sludge that is generally smelted into an ingot that is shipped to a metals refinery for final processing into 99.9999% pure metals. Gold cyanidation (also known as the cyanide process or the MacArthur-Forrest Process) is a metallurgical technique for extracting gold from low-grade ore by converting the gold to water soluble aurocyanide metallic complex ions. ... This article is about the chemical compound. ... Sodium cyanide is a highly toxic chemical compound, also known as sodium salt of hydrocyanic acid and cyanogran. ... General Name, symbol, number zinc, Zn, 30 Chemical series transition metals Group, period, block 12, 4, d Appearance bluish pale gray Standard atomic weight 65. ... Sulfuric acid (British English: sulphuric acid), H2SO4, is a strong mineral acid. ...


Advancements in the 1970s have seen activated carbon used in extracting gold from the leach solution. The gold is absorbed into the porous matrix of the carbon. Activated carbon has so much internal surface area[1], that fifteen grams (half an ounce) has the equivalent surface area of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (18,100 square metres). The gold can be removed from the carbon by using a strong solution of caustic soda and cyanide. This is known as elution. Gold is then plated out onto steel wool through electrowinning. Gold specific resins can also be used in place of activated carbon, or where selective separation of gold from copper or other dissolved metals is required.


The cyanide technique is very simple and straightforward to apply and a popular method for low-grade gold and silver ore processing. Like most industrial chemical processes, there are potential environmental hazards presented with this extraction method in addition to the high toxicity presented by the cyanide itself. This was seen in the environmental disaster in Central-Eastern Europe in year 2000, when during the night of 30 January, a dam at a goldmine reprocessing facility in Romania released approximately 100,000m³ of wastewater contaminated with heavy metal sludge and up to 120 tonnes of cyanide into the rivers of Tisza. The Tisza or Tisa is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. ...


Idiomatic use

In colloquial English, the term gold mine is used to describe a very profitable economic venture. For example, a business or investment opportunity that provides (or could potentially provide) a considerable amount of money for the owners or shareholders as net earnings could be considered a gold mine. (A profitable physical gold mine could also be called a gold mine due to its profitable nature.)


An example sentence using the term gold mine in the idiomatic sense could be: "This oil deposit is a regular gold mine. We make more and more money every year!".


As a verb, to 'gold mine' can mean to date or marry someone rich (normally much older) in the hopes of inheriting their money. One who does this is called a gold digger. It has been suggested that Verbal agreement be merged into this article or section. ... A person, most often a woman, who is romantically involved with someone else solely for their money. ...


References

  1. ^ "Porous Carbon: Room for Exaggeration" http://ergobalance.blogspot.com/2006/11/porous-carbon-room-for-exaggeration.html
  • Ali, Saleem H. ["Gold Mining and the Golden Rule: A Challenge for Developed and Developing Countries."] Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol 14: 3, 2006.

http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0959652605000776

External links

See also

Look up gold mine in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

  Results from FactBites:
 
Gold Miners HQ - Information Center for Prospectors! (285 words)
This is the largest directory in the world and a great effort to help our gold mining community.
The Gold Miner's Headquarters is the internet's largest information center for the recreational and small scale gold miner / prospector.
Manufacturers, mining suppliers, clubs, magazines, regulations, history, gold camps, dredging, drywashing, sluicing, highbanking, prospecting, etc. Site is concerned with the mining of gold, silver, and platinum.
Gold mining - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (671 words)
Gold mining consists of the processes and techniques employed in the removal of gold from the ground.
Hydraulic mining is a type of placer mining used in areas where large amounts of loose gravel and sand or soil are poorly packed and may be washed away with a heavy stream of water.
Veins of gold ore are often found several inches or feet wide in certain rock formations in a volcanic deposit and in certain bed layers in a sedimentary deposit, hence the minerals may be removed, collected, and treated to process the gold and other valuable metals (such as silver) from them.
  More results at FactBites »


 

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