When people think of gold mining, they likely picture bearded men with gold pans in mountain streams or Discovery Channel's Gold Rush.
In reality, it's neither!
In this video, we tour the entire gold mining process at Round Mountain Mine, owned and operated by Canadian gold giant Kinross.
We start where most mining operations begin—drilling, blasting, and loading with enormous shovels.
But with most gold here being microscopic, how do they extract every ounce from the rock they mine? That's where the milling and processing comes into play, and followed along every step of the way.
At the end of it all is the gold pour—where they carefully pour the gold, silver, and other metals extracted into bars for transport into the world.
I have an Air Force friend that inherited his uncles gold mine in Alaska. He works it for 5 months out of the year and does well with it.
ReplyDeleteRound Mountain Mine, owned and operated by Canadian gold giant Kinross. Let that sink in.
ReplyDeleteThis is nothing new. Canadian companies have been mining for precious metals in the US for decades.
DeleteIt's easier to run a mining company from outside the US due to all the regulations and bullscat associated with running a business here in the US.
DeleteI'm sure the workers get paid well, but that is the middle of nowhere. 50 miles from even a small town. I guess it would be a good way to not spend your paycheck.
ReplyDeleteI remember when the adventurer Steve Fossett's plane went missing in that part of Nevada. They did an aerial search and didn't find it, but did find 3 previously undiscovered small plane crashes. That's remote!
I spent about a week at that mine back in the 80's, diagnosing problems with some mining equipment made by my employer. At first they chauffeured me around but they got tired of that and let me drive down into the open pit in my rental car, which was soon covered with inches of mud.
ReplyDeleteI stayed in Tonapah NV, 54 miles away, and my best time was around 40 minutes. I worked for a really cheap company and the rental was a 4 cylinder Camero. Stayed at the Mizpah, a beautifully restored old hotel.
Don in Oregon
The Mizpah is haunted. See any apparitions?
DeleteA few details glossed over - the "carbon" that is used to absorb the gold/"cyanide" in solution is activated charcoal. The process in the video is likely potassium cyanide (K-C---N, where the number of dashes indicates the shared orbitals in the covalent bond of the molecule). be aware that potassium cyanide and indeed any type of cyanide with a carbon attached to a nitrogen with a free orbital available to bond to something else IS EXTREMELY TOXIC. minute doses will kill you. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME ! If you want to go out in the field and get your own gold, try panning somewhere legally. You might get wet feet but it won't kill you. I love videos like this because it makes me recall my love of chemistry.
ReplyDeleteUsually coconut shell carbon, and sodium cyanide NaCN.
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