Gold
Mining Methods
David Coil, PhD, Director1, Elizabeth Lester PhD2, Bretwood "Hig" Higman, PhD, Last Modified: 4th November 2014
Executive Director3
contact@[Link]
Summary There are strange things
Historically, the majority of gold was mined from "placer deposits" , where done in the midnight sun
gold has settled out of an existing or ancient waterway downstream of where
nuggets had eroded out of rock outcrops. Some early miners also used an By the men who moil for
early form of hardrock mining, digging solid veins of gold out of rock, where gold...
mineralized water had deposited it over thousands of years. -Robert Service (1907)
Today, gold is extracted in hardrock mines that directly mine the source rock,
or "lode" of gold, where it was originally deposited by geochemical processes. Most ore accessed this way
today contains only microscopic grains of gold, and it takes tons of rock to produce ounces of gold. Hardrock
mines can be either underground mines or strip mines, and are usually more environmentally destructive
than placer mining.
Placer Mining Modern Placer Mining
The stereotypical grizzled gold-rush prospector panning for gold
was searching for "placer gold", or gold deposited in a waterway.
Placer mining takes a variety of forms , including panning,
"sluice-boxing", hydraulic mining, and dredging. All of these
techniques use gravity and water to separate the dense gold from
the lighter sand and gravel. Some modern commercial placer
operations are quite large and utilize heavy equipment and river
diversions.
Placer mining targets "native" gold that isn't chemically bound up
within the rock itself. The sources of all placer gold are "lodes", or Near Nome, AK in 2006
veins of gold naturally formed within the rock. Ongoing weathering source: Copyright held by
and erosion of rock outcrops continuously exposes new fragments of photographer
gold that wash downstream. Because gold is far denser than most
rock (19.3 g/cc as opposed to about 2.7 g/cc) it settles into little
pockets between large rocks or into bedrock fissures. Gold accumulates in such places while other rock and
sediment is washed further downstream.
Hardrock (Lode) Mining
The vast majority of current gold production comes from commercial hardrock mining operations. In these
mines, the gold is extracted from the rock where it was originally deposited.
Some hardrock mines are underground mines . A tunnel is drilled or blasted to the source of the ore,
which is transported out for processing often by truck or rail. A variety of specific techniques can be used for
mining the ore, depending on the geology of the area - such as block caving , which allows massive strip-
mine scale underground excavation, or the more steretypical cut-and-fill and drift-and-fill techniques,
where miners dig our out in long horizontal tunnels.
Other hardrock mines are large strip mines that remove the surface dirt and rock and then extract the ore
[Link] Creative Commons Attribution Non-
1David Coil, PhD, Director;
Commercial
2Elizabeth Lester PhD;
3Bretwood "Hig" Higman, PhD, Executive Director; contact@[Link]
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from the resulting open pit. Removal of ore is often accomplished explosives, enormous power shovels ,
Mine pit at Fort Knox hardrock gold mine
and massive trucks, some capable of carrying 500 tons of rock in one
load.
In both kinds of hardrock mining, the ore is then processed in some
manner to remove the gold. Usually this entails crushing the rock into
powder and using some combination of gravity, centrifugation, and "froth
flotation" to perform an initial separation of gold from rock. In many
cases this is followed by some form of cyanide treatment to precipitate
out the remaining gold. The remaining ore mud waste is known as
"tailings", the disposal of which is one of the largest challenges facing a
hardrock mine.
Impacts Reconsidering the Value of Gold
Because placer mining doesn't crush
READ ESSAY
Fort Knox hardrock gold rock and doesn't usually use chemicals ...Gold is both highly valuable,
mine pit to extract gold, the environmental and relatively useless. The vast
source: Copyright held by impacts are generally less than those of majority of gold mined
photographer hardrock mining. The primary impacts throughout history is now
of placer mining are habitat destruction jewelry, or stored in vaults as an
and sediment release. Habitat investment...
destruction occurs as a result of river diversions, and the disruption of
riverbanks and river bottoms. These activities also release large amounts ...This means that governments
of silt and sediment into downstream waterways, which can severely are in effect lowering the cost of
impact water quality. Modern commercial operations tend to use settling environmentally destructive
ponds to prevent this discharge. mining, contributing to demand
by hoarding large reserves, and
Hardrock mines have a much larger environmental footprint that placer then directly paying for the costs
mining, by virtue of their size, the chemistry of the ore deposits, the of mine cleanup. All this in return
generation of extremely large volumes of hazardous waste material, and for no material benefit to
the use of toxic chemicals. Modern commercial hardrock mines are taxpayers...
massive operations, in some cases displacing and processing over 200,000
tons of gold-bearing ore per day. In addition to the direct ecological
disruption of mining on this scale, much of the gold mined this way is found in sulfur-bearing rocks. These
rocks, when disrupted by mining, can produce acid mine drainage, a problem that often needs active
treatment forever. In addition, many small mines use mercury for the separation of gold, while large
mines instead use cyanide. Both chemicals are very toxic, and mercury is persistent in the marine food
chain.
Gold mining in Alaska
Gold mining has a long history in Alaska, beginning with the Klondike Gold Rush at the end of the 1800s.
Even today there exist a variety of placer mining operations ranging from large commercial placer mines to
stream panning by tourists. The 150 or so official placer mines in 2009 produced 55,000 ounces of gold
while employing around 225 people. "Recreational" mining (non-commercial operations, usually by
individuals) produced an additional 286 ounces.
Alaska's hardrock gold/silver mines (primarily Greens Creek, Fort Knox, and Pogo) employed almost 900
people that same year, and produced over 720,000 ounces of gold.
Date Created: 6th October 2010
[Link] Creative Commons Attribution Non-
Commercial
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