Gold Mining...

gold jewelry boxes gold jewelry television unique jewelry, gold jewelry rings vintage jewelry jewelry beads pearl jewelry, jewelry charms jewelry exchange men's jewelry, jewelry armoire indian jewelry , jewelry boxes jewelry television unique jewelry, jewelry rings vintage gold jewelry gold jewelry beads pearl jewelry, jewelry charms jewelry exchange men's jewelry, jewelry armoire indian jewelry bridal jewelry estate jewelry discount jewelry pandora jewelry, jewelry cleaner turquoise jewelry bridal jewelry estate jewelry discount jewelry pandora jewelry, jewelry cleaner turquoise jewelry

Mother Lode Mine
Gold for jewelry is most commonly found and or mined in one of two kinds of deposits; Placer gold mining and Lode gold mining. Placer gold mining deposits are areas of free gold that have settled in pockets after being disturbed and moved by many years of weather facilitated erosion. Lode gold mining is found in viens buried deep underground in quartz deposits. Placer gold is mined using panning, sluicing, or dredging. Lode is mined using conventional "deep shaft" hardrock.

Placer Gold Mining

Panning: See Below for detail directions. Using a pan in the stream to separate gold from other minerals and materials.

Sluicing: Long wood boxes are built to run water laden with gravel over a series of sieves and riffles to separate the gold from the other minerals and materials. Other variations common in the miners camps were the "Long Tom" and "Rocking the Cradle".

Dredging: Placer miners can be seen today on Gold Country rivers using gas-powered dredges to vacuum sand and gravels from pockets on the river bottom. Gold is then separated in a modern version of the "Sluice Box".

Hydraulic Mining: Outlawed since 1884, Hydraulic Mining though extremely productive was very destructive. Entire hillsides were washed away with highly pressurized water sending tons of mud down into the rivers below.

Lode Gold Mining

Hardrock Mining: Nevada County's most profitable and longest lasting method of mining. Gold bearing quartz is mined in vertical or inclined shafts deep beneath the earth's surface.

Troy Weight
24 Grain = 1 Pennyweight
or 1.55 Gram
20 Pennyweight = 1 Ounce
or 31.10 Gram
12 Ounce = 1 Pound
or 373.24 Gram
Pure Gold (AU) = 24 Karat
or 1000 Fine

GOLD PANNING
Recreational gold panning can be exciting as well as laborious. Needing only a gold pan, shovel and a whole lot of patience, it is an activity that can be enjoyed by all ages.

More than 80% of the gold in the Mother Lode is still yet to be found, this makes gold panning even more enticing! Gold is found in areas where lode deposits and erosion have occurred. The best places to look for nuggets are streams, rivers, ravines, lake areas and dry ravines. If you are over- taken with Gold Fever you will be happy to know Gold Country has many waterways with numerous places for recreational gold panning.

The American River, Bear River, Yuba River, Deer Creek, Wolf Creek, Bridgeport, Colfax, Foresthill, Oxbow Reservoir, Yankee Jim's, on the Foresthill Divide, Washington (20 miles NE of Nevada City), Golden Quartz Picnic Area and Kelecher Picnic Area, just to name quite a few popular sites for prospecting. Some locations are private claims, mines or restricted use areas: please read signs carefully.

 

How to Pan for Gold

You will need a gold pan, a 12 or 15 inch steel pan is preferred.

Darken the pan by placing it over a burner or in a campfire. This will make the flakes of gold more noticeable.

• Look for gravel bars in the middle of rivers or streams
• Look for gravel bars around heavy water runoff
• On the downstream side of large boulders or tree roots in streams
• In cracks above the water-line, along the edge of the stream
• In streaks of gravel that settle above streambeds and follow the bottom of stream channels
Place your pan under water, keeping the pan under water at all times, filling the pan nearly full. Throw away the large stones and break up lumps of mud and clay.

Hold the pan level with both hands and rotate the pan with swirling motions. As you rotate the pan the heavier gold loosens from the sand, gravel and settles to the bottom. Tilt the pan downward to let the dirty water, sand and gravel wash over the edge of the pan.

Continue to raise and lower the lip of the pan so the water will flow over it and remove more of the lighter material.

Continue this process until nothing but gold and heavier minerals are left in the pan. Carefully inspect the black sand for nuggets or tiny specks of gold or other precious minerals.

Back to top »

Here is a brief description of gold.

* Standard state: solid at 298 K
* Colour: gold
* Classification: Metallic
* Availability:
Gold is available in many forms including wire, foil, and bars. Small and large samples of gold foil, wire, and teflon coated wire (and gold alloy in wire form) can be purchased from Advent Research Materials via their web catalogue.

Here is a brief summary of the isolation of gold. It would not normally be necessary to make gold in the laboratory as it is readily available commercially. The most romantic way to extract gold is by panning it out from a stream in some pleasant valley but most such sources are now depleted. Panning relies upon the density of gold (which is very high) being much greater than that of the sand and other particulates. It therefore settles to the bottom of the pan. Today, more often than not, gold is extracted from ores. These ores often contain relatively little gold. Some of these processes cause environmental concern. The ore is crushed to a powder so as to expose the small gold particles. These are dissolved by treatment of the rock with cyanide solution in air. The result of this is a gold cyanide complex. Addition of zinc powder to the resulting solution precipitates out the gold. 4Au + 8NaCN + O2 + 2H2O ? 4Na[Au(CN)2] + 4NaOH 2Na[Au(CN)2] + Zn ? 2NaCN + Zn(CN)2 + Au (s)