Gold is a metal that is very valuable and is used especially in jewelry, gold coins and other accessories in modern day life. It's yellow and is malleable, ductile and looks metallic element that occurs chiefly free or in a few minerals. Gold in it's natural mineral form always has traces of silver. It's possible to have traces of iron and copper with the natural mineral form itself. A gold nugget is at least 70-90% gold, whilst the remainders of the nugget is made out of silver. The color of pure gold is pure bright gold yellow. But the greater the silver content is, the more whitish the exterior of the piece of gold will be.
How is gold mined?
There are many different ways that gold is mined, from placer mining, hard rock mining, byproduct mining, and processing each ore. Each one of these methods have a unique way of mining gold, they all use different types of styles and are similar in different ways. Read more to take a look!
Placer Mining
Placer mining is where the gold is acquired through metal detection, panning, dredging, sluicing, and cradling. All these different methods are based on one principal, to use gravity and water to separate the denser gold from the other materials that are around the element, this is by far the most used gold mining technique for more amateur gold hunters. |
Hard Rock Mining
Byproduct Mining
Byproduct Mining is similar to Hard Rock mining as you do use open pits or underground mining tunnels. In byproduct mining, the main aim isn't to go for gold, but the aim for the operation is the recovery of copper, sand, gravel or other products, but significant quantities of gold exist to make byproduct mining a very profitable technique. Making Gold a secondary material/element to find.
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Processing of Gold Ore
The last method to use is processing Gold ore. The method is deprecated due to the yield of gold being substantially low, and the environmental impact and costs of the operations mostly exceed budgets/expense limits.
However, the gold ore is finely crushed rock or Earth that holds trace amounts of Gold which then are extracted using a chemical process. The most commonly used process for this is Cyanide. |
How to remove minerals from the ore
Froth Floatation |
Gravity Separation |
Froth Floatation is a process for separating hydrophobic materials from hydrophilic. When air is blown through the mixture, mineral particles grab on to the bubbles, which then rise to the top of the surface. After it reaches the surface, you can then extract the concentrated amount of gold from the bubble.
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Gravity Separation using different methods that utilise in differences of density in the gold with other minerals in rocks. The concentration equipment used in the gold separation process by gravity methods of systems can be typically used on small-scale gold mining, among others.
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How is the pure metal produced?
The gold is absorbed (collected) out of solution onto activated carbon. The remaining cyanide solution is recycled. The gold loaded carbon is moved into a vessel where the gold is chemically stripped from the carbon which is then recycled. Gold is precipitated from the solution electrolytically or by chemical substitution. The pure gold is then melted into dore’ bars containing up to 90 percent gold. Dore’ bars are then sent to an external refinery to be refined to bars of 999.9 parts per thousand pure gold. Reclamation is a long-term investment made by every gold mining company, and can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 per acre. It is the cornerstone of every mine plan and is considered the first and last step of the mining process. Gold is produced at some mines as part of the process of mining and refining other metals, such as copper. At those operations, gold is refined to an acceptable purity as part of the copper production process. At most gold mines, the gold “dore” is sent to a refinery for further processing.
Use's of the metal nowadays
Some everyday uses are being used for fillings, crowns, bridges and orthodontic appliances. Gold is a bio-compatible metal, meaning it can be placed in contact with a person’s body and not cause harm to one’s health. Gold is a very efficient conductor, making it a gold material for computer chipsets and motherboards. A fact is that a single mobile phone averagely contains 50 millimetres of gold. |
Environmental Issues of mining this material
Toxic Waste
Our modern Industrial mining destroys landscapes, which create or release large amounts of toxic waste. This is due to the large practices of mining and the leaching of the cyanide mixture. Mining companies ultimately produce 30 tons of toxic waste per 0.333 ounces gold ring. That would be crazy in long-term pollution wise.
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Acid Mine Drainage
Any dirty gold has a persistent problem called Acid Mine Drainage. This persists due to the underground rocks being disturbed by the newly exposed air and water. Iron sulfides (often called “fool’s gold”) in the rock can react with oxygen to form sulfuric acid. Acidic water draining from mine sites can be 20 to 300 times more concentrated than acid rain, and it is toxic to living organisms, making it insanely deadly.
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Mercury Pollution
For every gram of gold produced that are made in plants. Artisanal gold miners release roughly 2 grams of mercury into the open-world environment. If you calculate it all together, the world's 10 to 15 million artisanal gold miners release approximately 1000 tons of mercury into the environment each year, or that 35% of any man excreted mercury pollution. Artisanal gold mining is the leading cause of global mercury pollution, which takes the lead of coal-fired power plants.
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Jobs/Careers for mining
Employed people would work with different categories, from driving motor vehicles to help gather resources in open cut mines, the minimum requirements or qualifications to start on a mine site is based on the actual mine site itself. Not all companies offer a specific position, so you may want to check up on what you need.
Some site requirements could include licenses to drive vehicles, medical degrees, security clearances, and etc. Most mining sites make it compulsory for you to have an Australian Manual driver license, some could even require you to have a specific license, as for a example, a Heavy Rigid (HR) License. You may want to check if it's actually a required qualification as you will have to commit to the costs of retrieving your Heavy Rigid (HR) License.
There are many other qualifications if you are planning to move into these departments of mining. For an example you may need some Medical Requirements, pre-employment and some other different requirements are tested upon successful job offer. All medical candidates are to undergo a Drug & Alcohol screening 14 days before arriving at the mine site. Unfortunately if the result is over 14 days old, you will have to undergo another screening to prove that you are eligible for the mine site.
And another option is Pre-Employment medical degree, it's made up of questions that determine your medical condition and your overall fitness to undertake the duties that branch underneath the role. Some questions could be,
- Lifestyle
- Physical Condition
- Personal Health History
- Previous Employment History
- Appearances and Outlooks, (Age / Weight / Height)
- Blood Pressure
- Heart Rate
Although these roles are just a tiny proportion of the mining industry, there are tons of other complicated roles that tend to work around mining. Even though these roles branch out of bigger roles, you can always explore the bigger mining industry by taking a look a recruitment or job offers on mining websites.
There are many other qualifications if you are planning to move into these departments of mining. For an example you may need some Medical Requirements, pre-employment and some other different requirements are tested upon successful job offer. All medical candidates are to undergo a Drug & Alcohol screening 14 days before arriving at the mine site. Unfortunately if the result is over 14 days old, you will have to undergo another screening to prove that you are eligible for the mine site.
And another option is Pre-Employment medical degree, it's made up of questions that determine your medical condition and your overall fitness to undertake the duties that branch underneath the role. Some questions could be,
- Lifestyle
- Physical Condition
- Personal Health History
- Previous Employment History
- Appearances and Outlooks, (Age / Weight / Height)
- Blood Pressure
- Heart Rate
Although these roles are just a tiny proportion of the mining industry, there are tons of other complicated roles that tend to work around mining. Even though these roles branch out of bigger roles, you can always explore the bigger mining industry by taking a look a recruitment or job offers on mining websites.
Training
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Mining is a very quick solution to making about $100,000+ a year. Which is a quick solution for financial freedom, setting you and your family financially for life.
But during the training process, there are different ways to get training, the most common training method is the Standard 11 Mining Induction. You will be trained with safety as a priority, ensuring that nobody in the mining industry gets hurt. Companies know when a singular person isn't working, it's costing the company money. So there are massive financial motivation programs as well to ensure that safety is paramount on a mining site. There is also Dump Truck training! You spend 5 days for this training process, mainly behind the wheel the whole time. Giving you real world experiences, also these training programs are conducted in small classes. So that provides more quality time for you and your trainer. It's held on a 100-hectare mine site that includes long-haul roads, rough & unstable roads, big circuits and other obstacles. There are different time settings also, this includes day time to dusk. And it does teach some emergency techniques for breaking so the operator and ensure full safety at all times and precautions, you are also trained for any escape routes of getting out of the truck. These are just some very few training techniques that are known worldwide. There are more techniques that have to be learnt with time. |
Made by Nathan Nguyen Bui |