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High-grade gold ore from the Harvard Mine, Jamestown, California, a wide quartz-gold vein in California's Mother Lode. Specimen is 3.2 cm (1.3 in) wide. Specimen is 3.2 cm (1.3 in) wide. Various theories of ore genesis explain how the various types of mineral deposits form within Earth's crust .
Orogenic gold deposits are responsible for approximately 75% of the world's gold production at over 1 billion ounces, when accounting that the origin of many gold placer deposits were orogenic in nature. [25] [46] The price of gold at a given time will have an impact on whether a deposit will be economically feasible.
In their chronology for Earth, Hazen et al. (2008) separated the changes in mineral abundance into three broad intervals: planetary accretion up to 4.55 Ga (billion years ago); reworking of Earth's crust and mantle between 4.55 Ga and 2.5 Ga; and biological influences after 2.5 Ga. [1] [12] They further divided the ages into 10 intervals, some ...
The lithosphere is the dominant reservoir of gold, containing an estimated 2.6x10 13 Mg. [1] Today, gold exists primarily as electrum, in hard rock deposits like tellurides, and as particles in placers in Earth's crust. Gold cycling starts with the microbial weathering of gold-bearing rocks and minerals which mobilizes gold in the environment ...
In 1970, South Africa produced 995 tonnes or 32 million ounces of gold, two-thirds of the world's production of 47.5 million ounces. [2] Production figures are for primary mine production. In the US, for example, for the year 2011, secondary sources (new and old scrap) exceeded primary production. [3]
A miner underground at Pumsaint gold mine, Wales; c. 1938 Landscape of Las Médulas, Spain, the result of hydraulic mining on a vast scale by the Ancient Romans. The exact date that humans first began to mine gold is unknown, but some of the oldest known gold artifacts were found in the Varna Necropolis in Bulgaria.
Gold occurs principally as a native metal, i.e., gold itself.Sometimes it is alloyed to a greater or lesser extent with silver, which is called electrum.Native gold can occur as sizeable nuggets, as fine grains or flakes in alluvial deposits, or as grains or microscopic particles (known as colour) embedded in rock minerals.
The gold bearing gravel is accessed by shafts and drives similar to underground mining techniques but is typically processed as if alluvial gold. [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] The heat associated with an igneous lava flow, in some cases, altered the gold bearing gravel so that it needed to be crushed first to extract the gold; an example of this kind of ...