Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Placer mining (/ ˈ p l æ s ər /) [1] is the mining of stream bed deposits for minerals. [2] This may be done by open-pit mining or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment.
Placer mining is an important source of gold, and was the main technique used in the early years of many gold rushes, including the California Gold Rush. Types of placer deposits include alluvium, eluvium, beach placers, aeolian placers and paleo-placers. [2] Placer materials must be both dense and resistant to weathering processes. To ...
Mining Claim Corner, Blue Ribbon Mine, Alaska. A placer claim is a mining claim on gravel or ground from which minerals are extracted using water. [1] In the United States, the valuable mineral in a placer claim is almost always gold, although other nations mine placer deposits of platinum, tin, and diamonds.
Gold panning, or simply panning, is a form of placer mining and traditional mining that extracts gold from a placer deposit using a pan. The process is one of the simplest ways to extract gold, and is popular with geology enthusiasts especially because of its low cost and relative simplicity.
Heavy minerals (dark) in a quartz beach sand (Chennai, India).Heavy mineral sands are a class of ore deposit which is an important source of zirconium, titanium, thorium, tungsten, rare-earth elements, the industrial minerals diamond, sapphire, garnet, and occasionally precious metals or gemstones.
Because the gold in the California gravel beds was so richly concentrated, the early forty-niners simply panned for gold in California's rivers and streams, a form of placer mining. [ 10 ] [ 11 ] However, panning cannot take place on a large scale, and industrious miners and groups of miners graduated to placer mining " cradles " and "rockers ...
A gold pan. Gold prospecting is the act of searching for new gold deposits. Methods used vary with the type of deposit sought and the resources of the prospector. Although traditionally a commercial activity, in some developed countries placer gold prospecting has also become a popular outdoor recreation.
Gold Dredge, Klondike River, Canada, 1915 The Yankee Fork dredge near Bonanza City, Idaho, which operated into the 1950s. A gold dredge is a placer mining machine that extracts gold from sand, gravel, and dirt using water and mechanical methods.