Small Mining Operations
Lode or Placer: What Difference Does It Make?
September 2014 by Keith Bowen
This explains the large difference in particle sizes between placers and hydrothermal lode deposits, but also means that while the mining may be similar in some cases, the sampling and recovery techniques are usually quite different.
What To Look For—And Look Out For—In A Placer Mineral Report
Buying a placer claim or investing in a placer mining property comes with plenty of financial risks. You need as much information as possible about the mineral deposit in order to minimize those risks.
Moving The Big Rocks
The anticipation of finding out if the system of snatch blocks, shackles, chokers, anchor points, and the strap binding the massive slab of rock in the bottom of the river would even budge an inch was weighing on me.
Designing and Evaluating Placer Gold Recovery Plants
For this article, I am focusing on industrial production plants that can handle 10 cubic yards per hour or more and would be fed by a loader or other heavy equipment...
Digging It Dry
I believe dry washing is an underappreciated prospecting method. There are plenty of places where there is some pretty decent gold to be had, but the spot is a long way from any water and dry processing may well be the best way to go.
Small-Scale Hard Rock Mining With Water Recycling
Once I have established the presence of gold in the sample, I collect five-gallon bucket quantities of the rock material for processing back at my shop.
Prospector's Guide to Rock Breaking and Blasting
The holes were overloaded with explosives, but I didn’t know it. I was just a green mining engineer fresh out of school and told to watch as the experienced miners set the charge.
Determining The Optimal Crushing Size for Gravity Recovery
It’s not easy to figure out what is best without testing, and so a certain level of confusion has developed about how small the ore ought to be crushed.
Subscription Required:
The Bawl Mill
• Ask the Experts
• Ask the Experts
• Taking on the EPA, Sasquatch, Ratchilla and Gold Dredging
• Gully Prospecting and Mining
• Wilfley Tables—Repair, Rebuild & Set Up
• Designing and Evaluating Placer Gold Recovery Plants
• Finding Streams of Gold
• This is Why You Check Your Tailings
• New Rules to Impact the Lease/Buy Decision
• There's a First Time for Everyone
• Appeals Court OKs Permits for Upper Peninsula Mine
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
Free:
Legislative and Regulatory Update
• Mining Journal Honored as Prospecting Magazine of the Year!
