Small Mining Operations
Lode or Placer: What Difference Does It Make?
September 2014 by Keith Bowen
This explains the large difference in particle sizes between placers and hydrothermal lode deposits, but also means that while the mining may be similar in some cases, the sampling and recovery techniques are usually quite different.
Resurrecting an Old Hard Rock Mine—Setting Up the Millsite
One of the first things we did while looking at buying the equipment was figuring out how it would dovetail into the milling process we already had in mind.
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.
Gold Geochemistry: Where Does Gold Come From?
Prospectors often wonder why gold deposits in veins like it does. Why is one vein rich while another is barren, even though they are only a few hundred feet apart?
Practical Advice for Milling Hard Rock Ores
The problem is that extracting gold from hard rock is often a lot more difficult than processing placer gravels. Still, there is some very high-grade ore out there in many old mining areas.
Resurrecting An Old Hard Rock Mine—A Series of Small Victories
…we cheered and high-fived each other as the ore cart slowly crested the top of the headframe, then picked up a bit of speed on the short downhill section and came to an abrupt halt, ejecting its contents of ore…
Digging It Dry
I believe dry washing is an underappreciated prospecting method. There are plenty of places where there is some pretty decent gold to be had, but the spot is a long way from any water and dry processing may well be the best way to go.
Hard Rock 101: Blasting With Kinepak Explosives
Fortunately, there are products on the market that can address these problems and make a small-scale mining operation feasible.
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