Cedar Creek Gold Rush

The Cedar Creek Mining District is located in Mineral County, Montana on the east slope of the Bitterroot Mountains, southwest of what is now the town of Superior. The district encompasses Cedar, Quartz and Trout Creeks and their tributaries, which originate near the crest of the northwestward extension of the Bitterroot Range. The creeks flow northeastward to the Clark Fork River. Mineral County is bound by Missoula and Sanders counties and shares a border with the State of Idaho.

Mineral County

Panning For Gold In Alaska

Alaska is truly one of the world’s most beautiful places. Many of those who visit today are drawn by the beauty of nature and abundance of outdoor activities available. In the late 1800s floods of people were drawn to Alaska for another reason; gold. Many new settlements were established as a result. Many of these settlements, Fairbanks, Juneau and Nome, still exist today.

Gold Panning RV Vacation Ideas

Ever considered looking for gold on your next RV camping vacation? All across America, there are places for greenhorns to pan for gold nuggets. Panning for gold is relatively inexpensive, and who knows, you might just come home with the motherlode! If doing a little prospecting on your next vacation sounds good, use the ideas below to start planning your next RV camping vacation.

Southeast US Gold Panning RV Vacation Ideas

10 Great Places To Pan For Gold

When thinking about great locations to take a vacation, places to pan for gold rarely come to mind.  Great vacation spots always seem to be associated with the Caribbean Cruise, long sandy beaches, and Disneyland, do they not? Okay, I admit, the aforementioned places are really great for having family fun and relaxation. But what you may not realize is that one of the most truly exciting hobbies in the world is the age old search for gold!

The Best Metal Detector for Gold Prospecting

At  moment detect a metallic gold. There are 3 main types of to keep in mind: Nugget hunting, jewelry metal detecting, and detecting for gold coins. Each method requires different strategies, locations, and sometimes it is difficult to choose the best metal detector.

For eons mineralized quartz arteries and unexposed ore bodies have been shedding pure gold for nugget hunters to find. The best spots for nugget hunting are the desert areas in Midwestern states like Arizona and California. Although many gold nuggets have been uncovered, geologists agree that 95% of the gold in our western states has yet to be found.

Gold Classifiers For Gold Prospecting

When go gold prospecting there are certain tools that can help recover gold faster. A classifier is basically a screen that can sift materials down to certain smaller sizes. When are digging and shoveling dirt into a classifier screen out the twigs, leaves, bullets and larger pieces of rock that you need to throw out because they have no value. This leaves smaller materials to examine or pan or run through other devices that capture gold.

Prospecting For Gold In The Usa On Budget

Gold Prospecting in america on a Budget

The continuing says of Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming are safeguarded from regulations that prevent gold detectors from selecting gold.

The main thing you must consider if you opt to venture out prospecting for gold, is normally that the Home laws are rather severe in this country. Practically, if you don’t own the property, there is no Necessity any to trespass, let alone take up a prospecting venture. Make Certain to check with who owns the property before, make certain they’re okay together with your interests and barter the True cost for your stay and the percent they’ll gain in the event that you do find something. Make Certain you draft papers and get them to legalized properly in order to avoid complications.

It usually is serious trouble to precious metal pan in virtually any national park also. The federal government does this to safeguard the wildlife and normal means in these parks. If you do opt to prospect below you shall Necessity to obtain a permit.

Gold Prospecting In America

 

Prospecting for Gold in the usa
 

Anyone who pans for gold hopes to be rewarded by the glitter of colors from the fine material collected in the bottom of the pan. Although the actual exercise and outdoor activity knowledgeable in prospecting are rewarding, you will discover few thrills comparable to locating gold. Even an assay report showing an considerable content of gold in the sample obtained from a lode put in is exciting. The would-be prospector wishing for financial gain, however, should carefully consider all of the pertinent facts before deciding over a prospecting venture.

Finding Gold In Connecticut

Gold prospecting in Connecticut has a small amount of placer gold, and To finding gold in connecticut can be done in river stream. As is the case in many other New England states, Connecticut does have gold from Alluvial placers,  those formed in river or stream sediments. 

Alluvial Gold: This is the gold that is deposited through the movement of water. Generally speaking, large deposits of gold are part of the Earth and were put in place many millions of years ago. Over time, these gold deposits were exposed to erosion that led to them being broken up and washed downstream in rivers, creeks and the like. Because gold is far heavier than typical rocks or gravel, it settled in small amounts spread out down the water flow.

Gold Prospecting In Alabama

After gold was discovered in Georgia prospectors began working in Alabama and had a "Gold Rush" following the discovery of gold in 1830 in Chilton County and The first major strike occurred in 1830 at Blue and Chestnut Creeks. From 1830 until about 1990, Gold in Alabama produced nearly 80,000 ounces of gold. The gold prospecting in alabama most important found at Cleburne, Tallapoosa, Clay and Randolph Counties. Only Cleburne and Tallapoosa Counties produced more than 20,000 ounces of gold. Gold has been found in both lode and placer deposits, with the majority coming from area in the east central part of the state up next to the Georgia border.

Gold in Alabama has been found throughout Talladega, Tallapoosa, Chambers, Coosa, Clay, Chilton, Elmore, Cleburne, and Randolph Counties. In Talladega County, the Riddle and Story Mines both produced lode gold, with placers found in Talladega Creek.

Simple Survey Gold Prospecting

Survey the location of the gold

Gold prospecting is the act of searching for new gold deposits. Methods used vary with the type of deposit sought and the resources of the prospector. Although traditionally a commercial activity, in some developed countries placer gold prospecting has also become a popular outdoor recreation.

In the process of finding an area that has the gold prospecting, location survey process is very important. So that we can know the area contains a potential gold metal or not.

All gold mining either large or small mine to search for the existence of gold deposits in an area through a survey activities, either the survey the rock type or rock formation, and characteristics survey of the soil

Survey and identification process to find the location gold prospecting this is also done by surveyors in the world's largest gold mine

Exploration Project Drilling For Gold Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell mining

A KSM drill rig perches above a deep valley about 80 miles east of Wrangell. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)

British Columbia’s Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell mining project wrapped up its 2015 exploration season in late September. The KSM, about 30 miles east of the Alaska border, is the largest of 10 or so such projects near waterways that flow into Southeast. 

Its owner, Toronto-based Seabridge Gold, The Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM) mine, owned by Seabridge Gold, is located approximately 65km north-west of Stewart in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of the world's biggest gold / copper projects under development has already spent close to $200 million searching for ore. We take you there, during the previous season, to learn about the exploration process.

A drill rig grinds into the bedrock of a high ridge, overlooking a wilderness of snow-capped mountains and lushly vegetated valleys. The bright blue rig juts up through the roof of a rough shack of sturdy tarps, sheets of plywood and heavy timber.

Inside, Jeff Skinner is setting up the diesel-powered, hydraulic drill rig for its next run.

“Well, we’re doing mineral exploration for these gentlemen. We’re drilling the hole, pulling the rock samples out of the ground and sending them down to the geologists and they take care of it from there,” he says.

A glacier reflects in a naturally occurring pool of rusty, acidic water at the site of one of the KSM  prospect’s planned open-pit mines. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/ CoastAlaska News).

Long, brownish pipes are lined up outside the shack, waiting to be used.

“They put the steel in a giant drill chuck like you’d have in a hand drill. And turn it at high speed with a diamond bit at the end,” says Bill Threlkeld, senior vice president for exploration for Seabridge Gold, which has drilled 383 holes at the KSM over the past 10 years.

The pipes are sent deep into the ground and an inner sleeve brings back cylindrical samples, called cores. Threlkeld says they help pinpoint the location of the richest gold and copper deposits.

“It was at roughly 700 meters depth, so 2,100 feet, more or less, down. Before the work on this hole is done, the drill will reach more than two-thirds of a mile into the Earth,” he says.

“We have Mitchell 0-6, so it’s Mitchell, drilled in 2006, zero-one, first hole,” he says.

He’s taken me to near the end of a valley that can only be described as “raw.” It’s bare rock, with no trees or bushes.

At the valley’s upper end is what’s left of the glacier that once filled this U-shaped valley. Murphy says “once” wasn’t that long ago.

“We’re walking to an area where six years ago, where we’re standing, the ice would have been 10 feet above our outstretched arms. So you can see how much it’s receded,” he says.

The valley is splotched and streaked with rust, reddish-brown streams flowing down its sides. The color comes from exposed iron, which reacts with air and water.

Sulphurets Creek, which drains naturally occurring rusty water from the KSM prospect, enters the Unuk River. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)

“This is oxidation. Natural oxidation. And this is what produces the acid, which everyone has concerns about for water contamination,” he says.


Acidic water from mines and stored waste rock can hurt or kill fish, including those Alaskans depend on for food and jobs. KSM developers say it will be treated and stored properly at the site, about 80 miles east of Wrangell. Critics in Southeast cast strong doubts.


Up one side of the valley is a much different color. It looks like someone spilled a very large can of paint while ascending the ridge.

The blueish-green is just an indication that there’s copper in the system here. It gets exposed to the atmosphere and the copper comes out of solution. It’s an indication we’re in a mineral-rich area.

Because in this part of the world, where you find copper, you find gold.

After the cores are drilled out of the bedrock, they’re flown by helicopter to the KSM’s analysis operation, farther down the valley.

They’re cut into clearly labeled pieces for examination.Inside another wood-and-tarp building, Michelle Campbell points to the computer screen of what’s called a hyperspectral imaging device.

“A regular camera just looks at three spectral bands. But this one looks at 214 different spectral bands, so it’s much more precise,” she says.

The picture is electronically enhanced to show what’s on the surface of the rock core. She’s happy with what she sees, the presence of valuable metals.

“So in this one it would be like the reds and some of these darker, like brownie, colors. [They’re] the good stuff,” she says.

The cores and the enhanced images undergo further scrutiny before being shipped south for more detailed analysis by an independent lab. Those results determine whether and where the company will mine.

But other factors come into play. Seabridge Gold has the main provincial and federal permits needed to turn its exploration project into a mine. But it’ll still need to raise more than $5 billion, U.S., from potential investors.

Rock cores wait for analysis at the Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell project, one of the British Columbia mines planned for near the Southeast Alaska border. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld, CoastAlaska News)

Source : News Gold Mining In The World

High Grade Gold Vein In Fire Creek Gold Mine Nevada

Gold nuggets in mines are not just a thing of the past. Fire Creek gold mine is one of the few mines in the world that can boast visible gold ore. The Fire Creek property is located in north central Nevada

The underground mine is in Lander County and is about seven miles northwest of Crescent Valley. The mine is owned by Klondex Mines Ltd.

Klondex acquired the Fire Creek property in 1975. From that time until 1999, Klondex had leased the property to four different companies, said Fire Creek Mine Manager Mike Isaak. Those companies did various stages of exploration. One of the companies even did a production heap leach test, but that didn’t prove out very well due to the nugget effect of the ore, Isaak said.

Klondex didn’t become “serious” about the property until 2004, he said.

“Over a short period of time they drilled 360,000 feet of drilling, which was all done from the surface at that time,” Isaak said.

The Fire Creek underground project was started in April 2011. Prior to that, people thought the mine would be a surface mine, but a change in leadership at the company was a turning point for how the mine was conceived, Isaak said.

“Paul Huet became CEO in September of 2012,” he said. “That was really a turning point for Klondex and for Fire Creek.”

In March 2014, Klondex announced the mine had 717,000 ounces of measured and indicated resources available.

“That started to get some people really excited about what’s the potential of Fire Creek,” Isaak said.

After that, the property’s next milestone was a gold pour, which was made possible when Klondex bought the Midas Mine in Elko County from Newmont Mining Corp.

“All the material that we produce is processed at Midas,” Isaak said.

Production Fire Creek gold mine Nevada

Joyce, Vonnie and Karen are the “premier veins” in Fire Creek, Isaak said. These veins are the main sources for the ore. The site plans on mining about 76,000 ounces of gold this year, he said.

The fourth vein is Hui Wu, said Fire Creek Chief Geologist John Marma.

“They’re all banded high-grade veins, the result of an epithermal vein system,” he said. “The grades speak for themselves.”

The Joyce Vein is 5.481 ounces per ton over 1.7 feet and the diluted grade is 1.422 opt over slightly more than 7 feet at particular faces, Marma said. He also went through select faces of the other veins: Vonnie is 1 foot of 80.056 opt and the diluted grade is 25.213 opt over slightly more than three feet. Karen is 2.5 feet at 8.324 opt and the diluted grade is 3.299 opt over 6.4 feet. The Hui Wu Vein is 5 opt over 1 foot.

Marma said the mine has “bonanza grades” because it is an epithermal system.

“It’s very typical of these systems,” he said. “With those bonanza grades we have seen upwards of 800 to 900 ounces per ton in some faces. … It’s a really well developed deposit and we expect to be here for awhile.”

An epithermal system is normally narrow, high grade and typically underground, he said. To mine the ore, they need to mill it. When asked to describe the type of ore in the mine, Marma said none of the ore is refractory or oxide. He said 60 percent is done on the course portion of the mill, because it still is found in nugget or visible form.

Part of the reason visible gold is found at Fire Creek is because the site wasn’t touched in the 1800s, Marma said.

“We’re mining high volume at quality tons,” he said.

The mine and the veins are open in all directions, Marma said. For example, the Joyce Vein has been mined for a quarter mile, but the end has not been reached yet.

“The property is grossly under-explored,” Marma said. “Only 2 to 3 percent has been mapped. The mineralization goes all the way to the surface but we haven’t found the end yet.”

Fire Creek is the highest grade gold producer in the world. According to mining.com, Fire Creek’s average grade is 1.5 ounces per ton. The next closest underground operation is Macassa Mine in Canada and it has an average grade of 0.77 opt. Turquoise Ridge Joint Venture, owned by Barrick Gold Corp. and Newmont Mining Corp., has the most reserves in tons for an underground gold mine, but its average grade is 0.59 opt.

The diluted grades for the Karen Vein ranged from 1 opt to 5 opt, Marma said.

“It was kind of a surprise,” he said. “She’s been a good vein.”

The veins consist of quartz, calcite and gold and silver. The host rock of the veins is basalt. Marma said the basalt holds a fracture open well and is a competent rock host. This means the mine needs very little shotcrete.

All of the ore at Fire Creek has been mined through cut-and-fill method, Isaak said.

“We’re transitioning to long-hole mining or open stoping,” he said.

The miners use jackleg and mechanized drills. The development mining is done with a mechanized drill and a lot of the vein mining is done with jackleg drills.

“We’re pretty excited about the transition,” Isaak said about changing to open stoping. “It will help lower costs. We won’t be able to do it everywhere, but where we can, we will.”

Employees Fire Creek gold mine Nevada

The staff as Fire Creek is mostly veterans of the mining industry.

Isaak came to Fire Creek in June 2014. He has 40 years of mining experience and has worked in underground mines all over the world throughout his career.

Marma has 17 years of underground and surface geology experience. He was hired by Klondex in January 2014. He worked previously for Newmont at the Midas Mine.

Doug Crawford has worked in the mining industry for 34 years. He has worked mostly underground and was hired to work at Fire Creek in December 2013.

Rob Crommelin is the senior safety manager and has worked in the industry for 14 years. Ten of those have been spent underground.

Fanuel Banda has 11 years of experience and most of that has been spent underground. He has worked in the U.S. and in Zambia.

Mike Baum has been in the mining industry for 22 years.

“We’ve pulled together quite a talent pool,” Isaak said. “Of the people that we just introduced, we have 135 years of mining experience here at this site. That’s very comforting for myself, as a mine manager, to know that we have that level of experience here, and we truly have people that are passionate about safety and making this property very successful.”

The site has 42 hourly and 21 salaried employees. Klondex started mining the site with a contractor, but took over operations in the early part of 2014. The company also has offices in Reno, Winnemucca and Elko. The property does have about 31 contractors who perform drilling, maintenance and security. The drilling on the surface and underground is done by American Drilling.

“It puts us just under 100 people on a regular basis,” Isaak said.

He said all the employees are proud of the site’s safety record. Last year it was awarded the safest small underground mine in the state for 2013.

“On the heels of that, in October of last year, Fire Creek had achieved two years of lost time free,” Isaak said. “We are currently at over a thousand days and will be celebrating three years of lost time free in October again this year. … In the mining industry that’s not easy to accomplish.”

Windfall Lake Gold Project and gold deposit in Quebec, Canada

The Windfall Lake Gold project is located in the province of Quebec, approximately 200 kilometres northeast of Val-d’Or and 115 kilometres east of the town of Lebel-sur-Quévillon and is accessible year-round through a network of well-maintained logging roads (Figure 1). The property is located north of the 49th parallel and is subject to the provisions of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement executed in 1975. The Windfall Lake Gold project falls within the traditional territory of the Waswanipi Cree First Nation.

The Windfall Lake property is 100 percent owned by Oban Mining Corp. and comprises 285 individual claims covering an aggregate area of approximately 12,400 hectares.

Eagle Hill Exploration Corporation, recently acquired by Oban Mining Corp., has established an Advance Exploration Agreement with the Cree First Nation of Waswanipi, the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee), and the Cree Regional Authority regarding exploration and development of the Windfall Lake Gold Project.

Geology

The Windfall Lake property occurs within the Urban-Barry Greenstone Belt located in the eastern part of the Abitibi Subprovince. The Urban-Barry Greenstone Belt has an east-west extent of 135 kilometres and is 4 to 20 kilometres wide. Oban Mining is currently the largest stakeholder in the Urban Barry Greenstone Belt with over 40% of the land staked.

At the Windfall Lake deposit, the volcanic stratigraphy trends to the northeast and dips moderately towards the southeast. The tholeiitic volcanic rocks are intruded by a series of NE- to E-trending calc-alkalic porphyry dikes that are intimately associated in space and in time with the important gold mineralization. Alteration is principally silica-sericite-tourmaline with a peripheral chlorite-carbonate halo.

Figure 2. Geology map of the Abitibi Greenstone Belt with location of the Windfall Property in the Urban-Barry belt

Gold mineralization

The most significant gold mineralization defined to date on the Windfall Lake Property occurs in the Main Zone, located in central-south portion of the property. Additional gold mineralization is also present in the peripheral F-11, F-17, and F-51 zones (Figure 3).

The gold mineralization in the Main Zone occurs in several sub-vertical, northeast-trending lenses measuring between 2 and 35 meters in horizontal thickness. To date, better lateral and vertical continuity has been identified as a series of sub parallel lenses along the corridors of Zone 27, Caribou, and Mallard that all have the same style of gold mineralization associated with sulphide replacement, generally pyrite, occurring as disseminations, stockworks and breccias. Within the lenses, there are a number of sub-horizontal to shallow easterly plunging, higher grade, and more continuous shoots extending for over 700 meters along strike.

The gold-bearing pyrite stockwork mainly consists of pyrite stringers with minor tourmaline needles; the stringers are typically less than 1 centimeter in thickness and are oriented in several directions (Figure 4). Trace amounts of chalcopyrite, sphalerite, pyrrhotite, arsenopyrite, tetrahedrite, and bismuth sulfosalts are also present around pyrite grains but also as inclusions in pyrite of the pyrite stockwork. Specks of gold are sometimes visible in the pyrite stringers and also in semi-massive sulphide bands, tourmaline veins or in the altered part of the rock around these features.

The stockwork mineralization is hosted within volcanic rocks and various generations of porphyry dikes except for the Red Dog dikes, which postdate the emplacement of the pyrite stockwork. Some of the fragments in porphyry dikes were altered and mineralized prior to being brecciated and porphyry dikes locally crosscut the pyrite stockwork mineralization, suggesting that emplacement of the gold mineralization was broadly coeval with the intrusion of the porphyry dikes. The distribution of the pyrite stockwork is greatly influenced by the geometry of the dikes, specifically for Zone 27 and the Caribou corridor, which are spatially associated with 2- to 30-metre thick northeast-trending porphyry dikes (Figure 5)

Gold mineralization (several ounces per tonne) is locally associated with brecciated quartz veins with colloform and crustiform banding (Figure 6). The veins are moderately dipping and trend northeast-southwest. The largest zone is vein 466 in the Zone 27 corridor with a strike extent of 300 metres and a dip extent of 200 metres. At a minimum width of 0.5 metres and an average width of approximately 1.5 metres, the colloform-crustiform veins can reach a thickness nearly 6 metres, locally.

The auriferous zones are cross-cut at depth by the quartz monzonite Red Dog sill, which is up to 100 meters thick and dips approximately 30 degrees to the southeast. Drilling by Eagle Hill indicates that the gold mineralization continues below the Red Dog sill to a depth of at least 870 meters below surface and remains open along strike and at depth.

The characteristics of the gold mineralization in the Main Zone are similar to intrusion-related gold mineralization described as atypical greenstone-hosted deposits by Robert (2007). Although these atypical deposits display similar regional-scale controls and commonly occur in the same camps as orogenic deposits, they differ in styles of mineralization, metal association, interpreted crustal levels of emplacement, and relative age. Those atypical greenstone-hosted gold deposits show a close spatial association with high level porphyry stocks and dykes. The Kanowna Belle gold deposit in Western Australia would be a good analogy to Windfall Lake gold deposit.

Figure 3. Surface projection of gold zones of the Windfall Lake Gold Deposit with location of the existing underground decline.

Figure 4.Typical gold-bearing pyrite mineralization at Windfall Lake Gold Deposit. a) Outcrop of  pyrite stockwork; b) Fresh sample with pyrite stockwork and silica-sericite alteration; c) pyrite stockwork in core. Red numbers are gold values in grams per tonnes; d) pyrite stockwork and disseminated pyrite with tourmaline needles (small black dots).

Figure 5. Sub-surface projection of the gold lenses (in red) in relation with the porphyry dykes.

Figure 6. Core pictures of the high grade crustiform-colloform veins. Impressive visible gold in figure b.

Figure 7. Vertical cross-section through the Main Zone, looking to the NE. Additional gold bearing lenses were discovered below the Red Dog unit with similar grade and thickness than above the Red Dog. Those lenses remain open for expansion.

High-grade gold resource

A mineral resource update completed by SRK (Canada) in November 2014 estimated 748,000 ounces of gold at 8.42 g/t gold in the indicated category, and 860,000 ounces of gold at 7.62 g/t gold in the inferred category. The bulk of mineralization averages ~10 g/t over 5 metres, with very high-grade pockets up to 248 g/t over 12.4 metres in some areas. Drill holes in the gold zones demonstrate good grade distribution along the entire mineralized interval. Preliminary metallurgical tests indicate a gold recovery of 95.7% using a standard gravity and flotation circuit, followed by cyanidation.

Table 1. Mineral Resource Statement (From SRK Consulting, November 13, 2014).

Reported at a cut-off grade of 3.0 g/t gold, assuming an underground extraction scenario with an assumed gold price of US$1,200/oz and metallurgical recovery of 96%. Inferred resources have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and as to whether they can be mined legally or economically. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of the inferred resources will ever be upgraded to a higher category. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability.

Resources : Oban Mining

Gold prospecting and gold deposit Kanowna Belle Australia

 

Gold prospecting in Kanowna Belle Australia was first discovered approximately 20 kilometres northeast of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia,  in 1893 about a year after Bayley and Ford discovered the Coolgardie Field and not long after Paddy Hannan located the gold-bearing alluvials that led to the discovery of the Golden Mile at Kalgoorlie-Boulder, also in 1893.

Kanowna Belle in Australiia lies hidden beneath a sand and thin sheetwash-covered plain dotted with salmon gums and bluebush about 18 kilometres northeast of Kalgoorlie. The old townsite of Kanowna and its surrounding vein, 'cement' and deep lead workings lie some two kilometres to the east and northeast of Kanowna Belle.

 

The deposit in Kanowna Belle Australia contains widespread and variable carbonate-sericite, sodic and minor silicic alteration. Pyrite is variably disseminated, occasionally veined, comprises between 1 and 5% of the rock by weight and is generally related to gold mineralisation. Other sulphide species or tellurides are present in minor amounts of less than 0.1% combined.

Gold mineralisation occurs with disseminated pyrite on and within discrete grains or blebs. Visible free gold is occasionally seen.Higher-grade zones frequently exhibit stringer-type quartz-pyrite veins. Generally, the bulk of the 5g/t Au mineralisation is associated with fine networks described as crackle-brecciation with sericite-carbonate alteration and variable silicification.

Gold production from Kanowna peaked in 1898 with just over 150,000 ounces produced from vein, 'cement' and deep lead sources. Production was sporadic between 1911 and 1946 when production, to all intents and purposes, ceased.

Interest in Kanowna surged again in 1979 as the gold price rose, resulting in increased exploration activity and, in 1986, the recommencement of mining at Kanowna. Total gold production from the Kanowna area is approximately one million ounces.

Exploration for additional mineralisation in the Kanowna area focussed on extending, or finding repetitions of known vein deposits and deep leads. Minor success was achieved on both fronts leading to the open pit mine on the old Ballarat and Last Chance vein systems (Delta Gold 67.5%, Pancontinental Mining 32.5%) and the commencement, after the amalgamation of leases to form the Golden Valley Joint Venture (Delta Gold 50%, Peko Gold 50%), of mining the deep leads for heap-leach treatment at the QED operation.

The Kanowna Belle discovery evolved as a conceptual model beginning as an occurrence of steeply dipping and narrow gold-bearing veins of limited extent - the interpretation placed on RAB results obtained in 1987 and 1988. A large area (400 metres by 300 metres) of anomalous gold-in-soil values, defined in 1989 in the area of the RAB drilling, was inconsistent with the concept. Follow-up RAB drilling and the discovery RC drill hole in December 1989 led to an alternative concept - that of a flat-lying but otherwise apparently structureless, supergene body which did not fit either a vein or deep lead concept.

Interpretation of deeper and more widespread (vertical) drilling results throughout 1990 demonstrated an elongation of the deposit to the southwest and suggested a southern dip direction. (It was the drilling of deeper holes GDD117, GDC118 and GDC119 late in 1990 that revealed the potential size of Kanowna Belle with intercepts of 50 - 80 metres of 2 - 5g/t Au).

Total production from the whole field, mostly from within a few kilometres of Kanowna, was approximately one million ounces - a significant field in the old days and certainly worth a serious look ten years ago.

Mineral Processing in Mines

      

      Minerals mining is a huge natural wealth, where mineral resources are optimally utilized if the will is essential for the continuity of economic growth. In the belly of this earth to save countless millions metal content and non-metallic materials that can be utilized as industrial equipment needs of society at large. Environmental components that have the potential to support the development of a mining exploration to create jobs. Where mining exploration activities require the expertise of trained and skilled professional and technical personnel who may be widely available in local communities. In addition to the manpower requirements of mineral properties and mine development activities often require additional materials and specialized technical services. It is also often provided by the company’s geological and mining engineering, who seek office in the local community to participate in exploration and mine development contract.

      Gold prospectors have won a lot of wealth and there is a finding that smaller-scale artisanal mining and managed by local residents. Natural resources are very abundant must be utilized efficiently and should refer also to the security environment. Because of environmental aspects will have a major impact on mining. But it also depends on how where we manage these resources.

     In the field of extractive metallurgy, mineral engineering, mineral processing, also known as mineral dressing or ore dressing, is the process of separating commercially valuable minerals from their ores. Mineral processing, treating crude ores and mineral products in order to separate the valuable minerals from the waste rock, or gangue. It is the first process that most ores undergo after mining in order to provide a more concentrated material for the procedures of extractive metallurgy. The primary operations are comminution and concentration, but there are other important operations in a modern mineral processing plant, including sampling , analysis and dewatering

SAMPLING AND ANALYSIS

       Routine sampling and analysis of the raw material being processed are undertaken in order to acquire information necessary for the economic appraisal of ores and concentrates. In addition, modern plants have fully automatic control systems that conduct in-stream analysis of the material as it is being processed and make adjustments at any stage in order to produce the richest possible concentrate at the lowest possible operating cost.

 

SAMPLING

Sampling is the removal from a given lot of material a portion that is representative of the whole yet of convenient size for analysis. It is done either by hand or by machine. Hand sampling is usually expensive, slow, and inaccurate, so that it is generally applied only where the material is not suitable for machine sampling (slimy ore, for example) or where machinery is either not available or too expensive to install. Many different sampling devices are available, including shovels, pipe samplers, and automatic machine samplers. For these sampling machines to provide an accurate representation of the whole lot, the quantity of a single sample, the total number of samples, and the kind of samples taken are of decisive importance. A number of mathematical sampling models have been devised in order to arrive at the appropriate criteria for sampling

ANALYSIS

      After one or more samples are taken from an amount of ore passing through a material stream such as a conveyor belt, the samples are reduced to quantities suitable for further analysis. Analytical methods include chemical, mineralogical, and particle size.

Chemical analysis

Even before the 16th century, comprehensive schemes of assaying (measuring the value of) ores were known, using procedures that do not differ materially from those employed in modern times. Although conventional methods of chemical analysis are used today to detect and estimate quantities of elements in ores and minerals, they are slow and not sufficiently accurate, particularly at low concentrations, to be entirely suitable for process control. As a consequence, to achieve greater efficiency, sophisticated analytical instrumentation is being used to an increasing extent.

In emission spectroscopy, an electric discharge is established between a pair of electrodes, one of which is made of the material being analyzed. The electric discharge vaporizes a portion of the sample and excites the elements in the sample to emit characteristic spectra. Detection and measurement of the wavelengths and intensities of the emission spectra reveal the identities and concentrations of the elements in the sample.

 

Mineralogical analysis
A successful separation of a valuable mineral from its ore can be determined by heavy-liquid testing, in which a single-sized fraction of a ground ore is suspended in a liquid of high specific gravity. Particles of less density than the liquid remain afloat, while denser particles sink. Several different fractions of particles with the same density (and, hence, similar composition) can be produced, and the valuable mineral components can then be determined by chemical analysis or by microscopic analysis of polished sections.
Size analysis

Coarsely ground minerals can be classified according to size by running them through special sieves or screens, for which various national and international standards have been accepted. One old standard (now obsolete) was the Tyler Series, in which wire screens were identified by mesh size, as measured in wires or openings per inch. Modern standards now classify sieves according to the size of the aperture, as measured in millimetres or micrometres (10-6 metre).

 

Mineral processing can involve four general types of unit operation: 

COMMINUTION

      In all of these processes, the most important considerations are the economics of the processes and this is dictated by the grade and recovery of the final product. To do this, the mineralogy of the ore needs to be considered as this dictates the amount of liberation required and the processes that can occur. The smaller the particles processes, the greater the theoretical grade and recovery of the final product, but this however is difficult to do with fine particles as they prevent certain concentration processes from occurring.

     In order to separate the valuable components of an ore from the waste rock, the minerals must be liberated from their interlocked state physically by comminution. As a rule, comminution begins by crushing the ore to below a certain size and finishes by grinding it into powder, the ultimate fineness of which depends on the fineness of dissemination of the desired mineral. Whereas crushing is done mostly under dry conditions, grinding mills can be operated both dry and wet, with wet grinding being predominant.

CONCENTRATION

      Concentration involves the separation of valuable minerals from the other raw materials received from the grinding mill. In large-scale operations this is accomplished by taking advantage of the different properties of the minerals to be separated. These properties can be colour (optical sorting), density (gravity separation), magnetic or electric (magnetic and electrostatic separation), and physicochemical (flotation separation). There are a number of ways to increase the concentration of the wanted minerals: in any particular case the method chosen will depend on the relative physical and surface chemical properties of the mineral and the gangue. Concentration is defined as the number of moles of a solute in a volume of the solution. In case of mineral processing concentration means the increase of the percentage of the valuable mineral in the concentrate.

GRAVITY CONCENTRATION

      Gravity separation is the separation of two or more minerals of different specific gravity by their relative movement in response to the force of gravity and one or more other forces (such as centrifugal forces, magnetic forces, buoyant forces), one of which is resistance to motion (drag force) by a viscous medium such as heavy media, water or, less commonly, air. Gravity separation is one of the oldest technique in mineral processing but has seen a decline in its use since the introduction of methods like flotation, classification, magnetic separation and leaching. Gravity separation dates back to at least 3000 BC when Egyptians used the technique for separation of gold.

It is necessary to determine the suitability of a gravity concentration process before it is employed for concentration of an ore. The concentration criterion is commonly used for this purpose, designated in the following equation (where represents specific gravity):

• for CC > 2.5, suitable for separation of particles above 75 micron in size
• for 1.75 < CC < 2.5, suitable for separation of particles above 150 micron in size
• for 1.50 < CC < 1.75, suitable for separation of particles above 1.7 mm in size
• for 1.25 < CC < 1.50, suitable for separation of particles above 6.35 mm in size
• for CC < 1.25, not suitable for any size

      Gravity methods use the difference in the density of minerals as the concentrating agent. In heavy-media separation (also called sink-and-float separation), the medium used is a suspension in water of a finely ground heavy mineral (such as magnetite or arsenopyrite) or technical product (such as ferrosilicon). Such a suspension can simulate a fluid with a higher density than water. When ground ores are fed into the suspension, the gangue particles, having a lower density, tend to float and are removed as tailings, whereas the particles of valuable minerals, having higher density, sink and are also removed. The magnetite or ferrosilicon can be removed from the tailings by magnetic separation and recycled.

      In the process called jigging, a water stream is pulsed, or moved by pistons upward and downward, through the material bed. Under the influence of this oscillating motion, the bed is separated into layers of different densities, the heaviest concentrate forming the lowest layer and the lightest product the highest. Important to this process is a thorough classification of the feed, since particles less than one millimetre in size cannot be separated by jigging.

      Finer-grained particles (from 1 millimetre to 50 micrometres) can be effectively separated in a flowing stream of water on horizontal or inclined planes. Most systems employ additional forces—for example, centrifugal force on spirals or impact forces on shaking tables. Spirals consist of a vertical spiral channel with an oval cross section. As the pulp flows from the top to the bottom of the channel, heavier particles concentrate on the inner side of the stream, where they can be removed through special openings. Owing to their low energy costs and simplicity of operation, the use of spirals has increased rapidly. They are especially effective at concentrating heavy mineral sands and gold ores.

Gravity concentration on inclined planes is carried out on shaking tables, which can be smoothed or grooved and which are vibrated back and forth at right angles to the flow of water. As the pulp flows down the incline, the ground material is stratified into heavy and light layers in the water; in addition, under the influence of the vibration, the particles are separated in the impact direction. Shaking tables are often used for concentrating finely grained ores of tin, tungsten, niobium, and tantalum.

FROTH FLOTATION

       Froth flotation is an important concentration process. This process can be used to separate any two different particles and operated by the surface chemistry of the particles. In flotation, bubbles are introduced into a pulp and the bubbles rise through the pulp. In the process, hydrophobic particles become bound to the surface of the bubbles. The driving force for this attachment is the change in the surface free energy when the attachment occurs. These bubbles rise through the slurry and are collected from the surface. To enable these particles to attach, careful consideration of the chemistry of the pulp needs to be made. These considerations include the pH, Eh and the presence of flotation reagents. The pH is important as it changes the charge of the particles surface and the Eh affects the chemisorption of collectors on the surface of the particles.

     Flotation is the most widely used method for the concentration of fine-grained minerals. It takes advantage of the different physicochemical surface properties of minerals—in particular, their wettability, which can be a natural property or one artificially changed by chemical reagents. By altering the hydrophobic (water-repelling) or hydrophilic (water-attracting) conditions of their surfaces, mineral particles suspended in water can be induced to adhere to air bubbles passing through a flotation cell or to remain in the pulp. The air bubbles pass to the upper surface of the pulp and form a froth, which, together with the attached hydrophobic minerals, can be removed. The tailings, containing the hydrophilic minerals, can be removed from the bottom of the cell.

      The addition of flotation reagents also affects the operation of these processes. The most important chemical that is added is the collector, This chemical binds to the surface of the particles as it is a surfactant. The main considerations in this chemical is the nature of the head group and the size of the hydrocarbon chain. The hydrocarbon tail needs to be short to maximize the selectivity of the desired mineral and the headgroup dictates which minerals it attaches to. The frothers are another important chemical addition to the pulp at it enables stable bubbles to be formed. This is important as if the bubble coalesce, minerals fall off their surface. The bubbles however should not be too stable as this prevents easy transportation and dewatering of the concentrate formed. The mechanism of these frothers is not completely known and further research into their mechanisms is being performed.

       Depressants and activators are used to selectively separate one mineral from another. Depressants inhibit the flotation of one mineral or minerals while activators enable the flotation of others. Examples of these include CN−, used to depress all sulfides but galena and this depressant is believed to operate by changing the solubility of chemisorbed and physisorbed collectors on sulfides. This theory originates from Russia. An example of an activator is Cu2+ ions, used for the flotation of sphalerite. There are a number of cells able to be used for the flotation of minerals. these include flotation columns and mechanical flotation cells. The flotation columns are used for finer minerals and they typically have a higher grade and lower recovery of minerals than mechanical flotation cells. The cells in use at the moment can exceed 300 m3. This is done as they are cheaper per unit volume than smaller cells, but they are not able to be controlled as easily as smaller cells.

       Flotation makes possible the processing of complex intergrown ores containing copper, lead, zinc, and pyrite into separate concentrates and tailings—an impossible task with gravity, magnetic, or electric separation methods. In the past, these metals were recoverable only with expensive metallurgical processes.

MAGNETIC SEPARATION

      Magnetic separation is a process in which magnetically susceptible material is extracted from a mixture using a magnetic force. This separation technique can be useful in mining iron as it is attracted to a magnet. In this machine the raw ore, after calcination was fed onto a moving belt which passed underneath two pairs of electromagnets under which further belts ran at right angles to the feed belt. The first pair of electromagnets was weakly magnetised and served to draw off any iron ore present. The second pair were strongly magnetised and attracted the wolframite, which is weakly magnetic. These machines were capable of treating 10 tons of ore a day.This process of separating magnetic substances from the non-magnetic substances in a mixture with the help of a magnet is called magnetic separation.

      Magnetic separation is based on the differing degrees of attraction exerted on various minerals by magnetic fields. Success requires that the feed particles fall within a special size spectrum (0.1 to 1 millimetre). With good results, strongly magnetic minerals such as magnetite, franklinite, and pyrrhotite can be removed from gangue minerals by low-intensity magnetic separators. High-intensity devices can separate oxide iron ores such as limonite and siderite as well as iron-bearing manganese, titanium, and tungsten ores and iron-bearing silicates.

      This process operates by moving particles in a magnetic field. The force experienced in the magnetic field is given by the equation f=m/k.H.dh/dx. with k=magnetic susceptibility, H-magnetic field strength, and dh/dx being the magnetic field gradient. As seen in this equation, the separation can be driven in two ways, either through a gradient in a magnetic field or the strength of a magnetic field. The different driving forces are used in the different concentrators. These can be either with water or without. Like the spirals, washwater aids in the separation of the particles while increases the entrainment of the gangue in the concentrate.

ELECTROSTATIC SEPARATION

      The electrostatic method separates particles of different electrical charges and, when possible, of different sizes. When particles of different polarity are brought into an electrical field, they follow different motion trajectories and can be caught separately. Electrostatic separation is used in all plants that process heavy mineral sands bearing zircon, rutile, and monazite. In addition, the cleaning of special iron ore and cassiterite concentrates as well as the separation of cassiterite-scheelite ores are conducted by electrostatic methods.

       There are two main types of electrostatic separators. These work in similar ways, but the forces applied to the particles are different and these forces are gravity and electrostatic attraction. The two types are electrodynamic separators (or high tension rollers) or electrostatic separators. In high tension rollers, particles are charged by a corona discharge. This charges the particles that subsequently travel on a drum. The conducting particles lose their charge to the drum and are removed from the drum with centripetal acceleration. Electrostatic plate separators work by passing a stream of particles past a charged anode. The conductors lose electrons to the plate and are pulled away from the other particles due to the induced attraction to the anode. These separators are used for particles between 75 and 250 micron and for efficient separation to occur, the particles need to be dry, have a close size distribution and uniform in shape. Of these considerations, one of the most important is the water content of the particles. This is important as a layer of moisture on the particles will render the non-conductors as conductors as the layer of the water is conductive.

      Electrostatic plate separators are usually used for streams that have small conductors and coarse non-conductors. The high tension rollers are usually used for streams that have coarse conductors and fine non-conductors. These separators are commonly used for separating mineral sands, an example of one of these mineral processing plants is the CRL processing plant at Pinkenba in Brisbane Queensland. In this plant, zircon, rutile and ilmenite are separated from the silica gangue. In this plant, the separation is performed in a number of stages with roughers, cleaners, scavengers and recleaners.

DEWATERING

      Dewatering is an important process in mineral processing. The purpose of dewatering is to remove water absorbed by the particles which increases the pulp density. This is done for a number of reasons, specifically, to enable ore handling and concentrates to be transported easily, allow further processing to occur and to dispose of the gangue. The water extracted from the ore by dewatering is recirculated for plant operations after being sent to a water treatment plant. The main processes that are used in dewatering include dewatering screens such as Sepro-Sizetec Screens, sedimentation, filtering, and thermal drying. These processes increase in difficulty and cost as the particle size decreases.

     Dewatering screens operate by passing particles over a screen. The particles pass over the screen while the water passes through the apertures in the screen. This process is only viable for coarse ores that have a close size distribution as the apertures can allow small particles to pass through

Sedimentation operates by passing water into a large thickener or clarifier. In these devices, the particles settle out of the slurry under the effects of gravity or centripetal forces. These are limited by the surface chemistry of the particles and the size of the particles. To aid in the sedimentation process, flocculants and coagulants are added to reduce the repulsive forces between the particles. This repulsive force is due to the double layer formed on the surface of the particles. The flocculants work by binding multiple particles together while the coagulants work by reducing the thickness of the charged layer on the outside of the particle.

       Thermal drying is usually used for fine particles and to remove low water content in the particles. Some common processes include rotary dryers, fluidised beds, spray driers, hearth dryers and rotary tray dryers. This process is usually expensive to operate due to the fuel requirement of the dryers.

READ MORE >>>Gold Precipitation Methods

Panning Of Gold In Deposit Placer With Gold Panning Equipment

       Gold panning, or simply panning, is a form of placer mining and traditional mining that extracts gold from a placer deposit using a pan. The process is one of the simplest ways to extract gold, and is popular with geology enthusiasts especially because of its cheap cost and the relatively simple and easy process.
        panning, in mining, simple method of separating particles of greater specific gravity (especially gold) from soil or gravels by washing in a pan with water. Panning is one of the principal techniques of the individual prospector for recovering gold and diamonds in placer (alluvial) deposits.

      The typical pan is a light but rugged circular metal dish with a flat bottom and sides that slope out at about 45°. Its inner surface must be smooth and free from grease and rust. In panning for gold from streams, the pan is first filled halfway or so with gravel, soil, and rocks from places where the current is slower (such as downstream of boulders or on the inner side of bends in the stream). The pan is then immersed in the water, and the mixture is thoroughly wetted and stirred. Lumps of clay are broken up, and large stones are picked out. The pan, still under water, is then given a combination shaking and gyratory motion. This allows the heavy particles to settle and brings the lighter material to the surface. At intervals the pan is tilted, and the light surface material is washed off. This process is continued until only heavy “black sands” (such as ilmenite, magnetite, and pyrite) and gold remain. The material is dried and the gold removed (perhaps after using a magnet to remove some of the black sand). Panning is slow, backbreaking work, but in experienced hands there is little or no loss of gold.

How to finding gold with gold panning equipment . . .
This is step by step : Panning of gold in deposit placer


Here are some gold panning equipment with low price that you can use :

 

READ MORE >>> Panning Of Gold In Deposit Placer With Gold Panning Equipment

Gold Testing

       The testing process gold from gold bouillon is very necessary, in which the gold content so that the results we obtain can be seen the most of what percentage of karat or purity levels of the value contained in the gold metal. In the process of testing the gold, there are several methods that can be used, ranging from gold assay methods in a simple way to use chemical solutions to using digital tools. Several types of testing processes such as methods Touchstone testing, Acid testing kits, Electronic gold testers.

      Touchstone testing is the testing of gold by using a textured black stone and is very light or even with the slate. In testing this gold requires an acid to see references from the gold content being tested. The way the test is to rub a gold metal on black stone, so it will look a yellowish colored scratches scratches from gold or small deposit of gold on the surface of the touch stone then do the same with a known gold item, apply a small drop of the test acid to each mark and observe - compare the reaction of the acid and repeat the test with a different Karat acid until a match is observed. Remember to test a fresh portion of the mark as you don't wont to cross contaminate the test acids. This method is best suited for known items of gold that are not hallmarked and you just really need to determine the Karat or purity of the gold. Touchstone testing compares how gold alloys of known and unknown fineness react to acid. For gold, the test is based on the fact that 24K gold resists all but the strongest acids. The purer the gold (the higher the karatage), the stronger the acid required to change its character or to dissolve it.

         Acid test kit is a method of testing by placing a small drop of acid to the surface of the item, sometimes it is required that you scratch the test surface in an inconspicuous place to be sure your not testing a gold plated item, this can be done with a pocket knife or small file. By breaking the surface of the metal the acid will give a more accurate result. Place a small drop of acid directly on the scratch starting with theAcid gold test lowest Karat acid first e.g.9kt. Observe the reaction and compare to a colour reference chart that is usually included, repeat the test with a higher value Karat acid if necessary until a colour match is found. Genuine or solid gold will usually leave a brown stain and non gold items will leave a green stain on the metal or react by bubbling and sizzling indicating that the item is either gold plated or contains copper as a base metal. Rinse the test item in clean water to remove any excess test fluid, any light staining left behind can be easily removed with a pencil eraser or buffing wheel. Always exercise caution when using Acid Testing Kits and be sure to read all safety information provided with your kit, acid is very corrosive and toxic. Acid testing is probably the most widely used of all the gold testing methods. A selection of different Karat acids are formulated to react in different ways when they come into contact with genuine gold items of a certain Karat

        The electronic gold tester is a relatively new addition for the scrap gold dealers toolbox, briefly it consists of an electronic circuit and a test plate of reference gold all housed in a neat desktop size box. Tri Electronics GT-3000 Gold Tester is a testing tool which is very good gold is used. The Electronics GT-3000 Gold Tester is a portable electronic device, developed by TRI Electronics, Inc., for efficient and quick determination of gold karat value (from 6 to 18 karat), and pure platinum. The GT-3000 Gold Tester also distinguishes solid gold from gold-plated items. GT-3000 Professional Electronic Gold this assay is very easy to use in testing gold, quickly and efficiently detects karat value of the gold from 6 to 18 karats. Also detects platinum and separates solid gold items from gold plated ones. Provides a numeric reading on the LCD display that corresponds to the karat table. The GT-3000 test set consists of a display unit which operates on two 9-volt alkaline batteries, sensor with rotary cap to obtain a drop of conductive gel, and a tri-cable for connecting the unit to the sensor and test plate.

         From some idea of ​​testing the gold, maybe you can decide the best way for you to test gold. Scrap gold acid test kit is working well, but you must also be careful in its use, because this is a dangerous chemical that is also when you are not careful.With that said, again we must admit we do like electronic gold testers. We’ve tried virtually all of them and recommend the Tri Electronics Gold Tester GT-3000. To test tools Tri Electronics GT-3000 Gold Tester, We have communicated directly with a Tri Electronics distributor only to be told we should buy for a large number, but we can get it on Amazon even just buying a product. In addition to the Amazon, you usually can find Tri Electronic Gold Tester GT 3000 for sale $ 215 to as much as $ 279.95. But you will get a discount if purchased from the Amazon.

This multiple test tools that you can buy gold in the Amazon

The Electronic Gold Tester

Tri Electronics GT-3000 Gold Tester

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TRI ELECTRONICS GT-4000 ELECTRONIC GOLD TESTER 6-24K DETECTION

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Acid Test Kit

PURI TEST

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PURI TEST

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READ MORE  >>>> ANALYSIS OF GOLD ORE