Diamond & Jewelry News, Advice and Prices for Consumers
Diamond & Jewelry News, Advice and Prices for Consumers
September 5, 2010
What is "gold prospecting" and what are its advantages over other methods of gold mining? I don't really understand if "gold prospecting" is a certain mining strategy or is it a broad name for all kinds of gold mining.
September 10, 2010
Common gold prospecting activities include prospecting for hard rock gold deposits, prospecting for placer gold and recreational prospecting.
Prospecting for hard-rock gold deposits is basically done through the investigation of rocks' surfaces. Geologists can identify rocks which typically comprise of some gold deposits. A strong rock hammer can be used to check and find such deposits within rocks. More complex tools and methods, such as drilling and/or taking soil and rocks samples to a further lab examination are also commonly performed. Magnification lenses can enable detecting the most small gold particles, almost invisible to a naked eye. Hard rock gold mining can be perform in numerous scales: From the modest rock hammer and small lens working kit up to a huge open pit gold mining project.
Prospecting for placer gold is performed with a gold metal pan or a more complex gold screening container, which possess a mechanical structure which leads to the filtering of sediment and water and maintaining gold particles. This method is commonly done by applying such tools in river beds or the surface of different water sources. No sophisticated or expensive tools are essential for placer gold mining, though trenching could be useful in order to obtain gold in deep locations. Reflection seismology can be conducted prior to the actual ore production, finding locations in river beds which are likely to contain gold particles.
As you can understand, gold prospecting is simply the quest for gold. The term is often used to described small scale projects, as large ones use modern expensive tools and is conducted only after a prior discovery of gold had took place in the investigated area.
September 6, 2010
As far as I know, gold prospecting means looking and searching for gold. All the common methods for discovering gold can be considered "gold prospecting". It doesn't really refer to the actual mining or gold production phases but more to the process of covering an area looking for gold and finding its location, before conducting more in depth mining.
