History & Geology
Picks & Pans: Gold Recovery in Placer Mining Operations
August 1999 by Staff
Two of the major factors affecting the profitability of a placer mining enterprise are the relative efficiency of the mining equipment, and the rate and percentage of recovery obtained while conducting mining operations.
Associated Gold Placers of the Comstock
What many people don’t realize is that the Comstock Lode produced over 8,000,000 ounces of gold…
Prospecting Homonyms
Three homonyms come to mind when I think of gemstones, gold and vegetables: carrot, carat and karat. Let’s look at carrot first.
Mineralized Faults and Contacts in the Search for Gold
Fault zones and rock contacts are important because the vast majority of gold and silver deposits, as well as those of many other metals, are formed by hot, mineralized water solutions.The Birimian Greenstone Belts of West Africa
The country we were to visit was Burkina Faso, a small country about the same size of my home state of Nevada with about 10 times more people. The second day I was in Africa, we went out to the goldfields for the first time.
The Silver Islet Mountains of Utah
I set up my dry washer on the north side of the cut and sampled the bed rock and dumps around me. As I was only sampling, I ran for 20-30 minutes, shoveling from a variety of areas.
Placer Gold Deposits of Utah
The placer deposits of Utah occur in two distinct types of environments. These are 1) placers found adjacent to, and derived from, gold, silver and base-metal deposits; and 2) placers found in major rivers and derived from unknown, distant sources.
Yesterday's Gold—Today's Mine
It would seem that we are often indeed destined to repeat history. In terms of gold discovery, even with all the advancements that have been made over the years, it seems we are once again on the cusp of returning to the 1800s world of gold mining. Even as you read this, a new gold rush is taking place in a sleepy little town in South Carolina.
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