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Methods Of Mining Gold

Gold Mining Methods have changed a lot more than what it was in the ancient eras of the Roman Empire and the Pharaohs of Egypt. Gold was much more common and easily extracted in the olden days. May be this was what lead the Egyptians to boast gleefully that gold was more common than dirt in Egypt.

As the quantity of gold dwindled over the years and because the surface reserves got depleted, the olden methods used to mine gold had to be changed. The new methods are more aggressive and more extensive.

Modern technological developments have helped immensely in the mining processes which involve a lot of heavy equipment and precision software too.

The Open Pit Method:

This open pit method can be used in the areas where the gold is found hidden among the rocks. But the gold is more nearer to the surface rather than towards the core. This method involves heavy equipments and entails extensive digging by the manual labor. The openings made are called as craters and they extend deep in to the interior of the earth. The rocks and the gravel or sand which is removed from the earth is then either blasted or treated chemically to extract gold.

Tunnel Method:

Here too the method is to dig in to the earth. But the gold is found here in the rocks embedded in the hills or elevated areas. This necessitates the creation of a tunnel like passage in to the hill. This is the usual mine which everyone knows about. The kind of mines seen in movies where workers wearing a head light are seen entering in to the dark tunnel. The creation of an opening in the mountain requires heavy weight equipment like a boring machine. Explosives are also frequently used in order to break the barrier of the rocks and blast them away. The blasted rocks may either reveal gold hidden beneath, or these blasted rock and sand are treated to extract gold.

By Product Mining:

The name itself is self suggestive. The actual or the principal mining is done for other metals or minerals. But during the mining process, Gold turn up as a bonus. This is an usual factor with the Copper mines, because Copper and gold are invariably found together in many mines of the world.

Hard Rock mining:

Majority of the gold is mined out in this way from the rocks.

Dredging, Panning and Sluicing are other mining methods employed on a miniature scale.

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