Small Mining Operations
Evaluating Gold Recovery with Mass Balance Calculations
March 2021 by Keith Bowen
Whether you are placer or hard rock gold mining, maximizing the efficiency of your recovery process is very important to success, and accurate testing is necessary to do so.
The Significance of Nuggets in Placers
Chances are better that both types of gold did not come from the same source. Let's look at the probable conditions to cause two types of gold in a placer.
A Model Mining Operation
After he excavates the ore down to bedrock, he goes over the bedrock with a metal detector to ensure he didn't leave any gold behind before he backfills the area.
Moving The Big Rocks
The anticipation of finding out if the system of snatch blocks, shackles, chokers, anchor points, and the strap binding the massive slab of rock in the bottom of the river would even budge an inch was weighing on me.
Hard Rock Milling: A Matter of Scale
Most prospectors understand placer mining a lot better than hard rock mining and don’t realize the amount of work that goes into processing different types of hard rock ore.
Tips and Tricks: How to Make Your Own Gold Bars Without Burning the Place Down
You find yourself with a bucketful of concentrates that you have accumulated over the season and consider the logical next step: to reduce the bucket of cons to a gold bar. Where do you begin?
Ophir—Possibly the Best Kept Secret in Alaska!
...I decided to excavate the semi-frozen high-bank that was resting on a soft shale bedrock footing. Within three feet, I encountered an intrusive!
Placer Sampling for the Small-Scale Miner
I have seen many samples taken originally with an eye toward getting the highest grades possible, but later someone claims that those results represent an average grade of the whole gravel deposit.
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The Bawl Mill
• Ask The Experts - Info on Santa Cruz beach placers?
• Ask The Experts - Detectors and flour gold
• Ask The Experts - Why is the gold in these clays?
• Ask The Experts - Can you explain colloidal gold?
• Ask The Experts - Where did this kimberlite come from?
• Ask The Experts - Can gold particles combine to form a nugget?
• Placer Gold Deposits in the Western States
• Clues for Detecting Ancient River Channels and Flats
• What Is Your Grade?
• State of Idaho Looks to Invest in Gold and Silver
• Colorado Uranium Mining in the 1950s Boom
• Drywashing for Desert Gold—Part II
• Decoding Dredge Capacity
• I Just Tripped Over A Nugget
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
