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Gold Mining Techniques

Gold mining is practiced around the world by several companies. These companies are having many operational fields which are located in various countries. Gold mining requires several techniques which are quite expensive and tough also. Some of the common techniques related to gold mining are described below.

1. Panning - this is the most common technique used by most of miners. In this technique gravel and sand which contains gold are placed in the shallow pan and then they are mixed in water, as gold's density is greater than the density of other rocks it settles at the bottom of the pan. Then the gold is filtered from the pan. This technique of extraction is mainly practiced in placer mining.

2. Metal detecting - metal detectors are having the quality to detect gold. These detectors can detect underneath gold from a distance. Metal detectors are quite useful in locating gold mines.

3. Sluicing - extraction of gold using a sluice box is a very common technique used by the miners. In this process gold is made to flow with water in the channel inside the sluice box. These boxes contain riffles which blocks high density gold and allows the water to flow outside. This sluice box system is very efficient in extraction of gold.

4. Dredging - now days these dredging methods are replaced by other modern techniques but still small scale miners practice dredging. In this process a machine is involved which is having a sluice box attached to its front end and this machine is operated by one or two peoples.

5. Hard rock mining - this process is carried out in mines where gold is encased in hard rocks. It consists of a drilling machine which is used to drill out the gold out of the rock. These techniques are commonly used in open pit mines. Some of the biggest open pit mine is located in Nevada and it is owned by Barrick Corporation. South Africa is having the world's deepest hard rock gold mine which is 3900 meters deep.

6. Byproduct gold mining - gold is also found as by product while extraction of other metals. During the extraction of copper and aluminum gold is obtained as by product. There are several mines around the world which are used for different metal mining but their by product is gold.

Gold is extracted in each and every country and there are several techniques for it.

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