Talk:Gold mining

Untitled
I haven't learned how to revert. Gold mining has been vandalized. ;Bear 20:13, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

"Human Rights Violations" section
It is clear that the following text is NOT NPOV. I have moved it here to the talk page temporarily so that editing suggestions can be discussed prior to moving an NPOV version back to the main page.

Human rights violations in large-scale goldmining

Open pit gold mining destroys large portions of fertile land and water bodies. Rural communities face involuntary resettlement, often without adequate compensation. Civil society organisations from all continents call on governments to stop irresponsible gold mining:Berlin Declaration 2005: stop irresponsible gold mining

For those that do not understand the issue, Wikipedia is not a forum for advocacy for any cause whatsoever -- it is a neutral provider of information. That means that it is not a place for people to try to recruit people to their cause, to explain how evil a particular industry is, how good a particular industry is, or anything else like that. All articles have to have a NEUTRAL viewpoint.

In this particular case, I would propose that the given section be altered to discuss the pros and cons of gold mining, explain the existence of controversy, and to provide links (without specific endorsement of any sort) to organizations on both sides of such issues.

--Pmetzger 15:01, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree, and I've continued this topic below. NittyG (talk) 09:07, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Information
Where is gold mined? --McTrixie 11:57, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Where is any information about the African gold mines? The methods, the people employed, the depth, the conditions?

See below for discussion on social and environmental issues. Also, the page on "gold" has some info on where it is mined, with a map of gold output.

I would think that there should be a separate article on the gold industry, if it can be defined that way. WHo are the largest mining companies, and on down the line, to the largest consumers (which industries) and investors and commodity markets. Maybe you should start it. :) I'll at least start a stub of the largest mining companies in this article. NittyG (talk) 09:07, 13 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Much of that should probably stay within this article. Be aware that much of that, ie consumers, comodity markets, etc, are very fluid, and not suitable for a detailed encyclopedia article.  We could have separate lists, however, similar to this one for gold mines and comapnies.   Turgan Talk 19:50, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Placer gold accumulation
Logic says in syllogism - if water flows down-hill over rock, then eventually, the precious metal or mineral will wash down to the valley. Further, if the matter (gold & mineral) is heavier than water, then force and gravity will distribute the matter. Force (water current) will push the matter down the path of least resistance. Gravity will attract that matter to the centre of the earth. Therefore, matter is washed from the hills to the centre and sides of the water-flow. Stream tests (MacKay, B. R., Cdn Geol. Survey Mem. 127, p. 65, 1921) have shown that sediment will gather at the bend in the stream (water-flow) but (gold) accumulation, in the centre, is just Baer Law theory. Rodeney (talk) 14:53, 31 August 2008 (UTC) Rodeney

Salting a mine
This may fall in this article or in the article about gold prospecting, but where is the information on the fraudulent sale of mining rights to a gold mine that has been artificially laced with gold? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 192.91.171.42 (talk) 21:24, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

use of Mercury - Quicksilver in gold mining
I saw a documentary on the gold mining in the amazon region some years ago. Vast environmental damage is done due to turning whole hill sides into sludge as well as using Mercury to bind the gold in the pan. This way large amounts of Mercury get into the river, to a measurable extent downstream. The gold-mercury compound is then poured in something like a turkish coffee can to be heated in open fire to evaporate the Mercury. Sorry - this is all I remember Walter Hartmann 11:36, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Mercury use
Mercury is not a very efficient way to recover gold, as the gold must be free of naturally-occurring vegetable oils and crusts such as manganese. In the old days, this was done using a ball mill and a mixture of chemicals to clean the gold. Often, blocks of wood with holes drilled in them were placed at the head (feed end) of sluice boxes and the holes filled with mercury, but a lot of mercury and gold was lost due to 'splashing'.

The device you may be thinking of is called a retort. The amalgam is placed in one end, and heated. The mercury evaporates, and is condensed to be used again. Many elements can cause a 'sickening' of mercury, reducing the effectiveness. DO NOT DO THIS!

Retorting gold can be dangerous, partly becasue of the fumes (Mercury fumes will kill you), but mostly becasue of the danger that the crucible where the Mercury is being heatet can cool slightly and the water in the rocovery end can siphon back to the very hot crucible and make it explode. you need to know what you are doing to retort mercury. --N.M.Sheedy

Now as for the stupid theory that miners wantonly lost Mercury... I just have to shake my head when I read this false blather. The idea that a great deal of Mercury was lost by miners is completely absurd. The miners used Mercury becasue gold would cling to it. If they were losing mercury, they were losing gold, and they did everything in their power to prevent this from happening--after all the idea of the whole process was to recover as much gold as possible! As such, very very little mercury was lost in normal gold recovery operation. In fact, looking at records of gold dredging operations on the John Day River and Middle Fork of the john Day River in the 20th century, the miners actually recovered MORE Mercury than they put into their collecion system... HOW? because Mercury is a NATURALLY OCCURING ELEMENT IN THE EARTH. Mercury is heavy, and their recovery system actually collected thier own mercury, plus some natural mercury that was already in the river bed. Moreover, I'll add that I have never heard of Mercury being poured into holes in sluice boxes while there is running water. I've been around mining all my life (and my family has been mining gold for more than 150 years) and have never heard of such a thing. The gold was recovered after the water stopped flowing in the sluice box by scraping out the gold and other heavy stuff that was collected by gravity and water flow in the ridges, grates and mats of the sluice biox. The Mercury was applies to the clean up after this in another container, and the Gold-Mercury solution taken from there. As such, Mercury rarely if ever touched a sluice box, and was rarely if ever in contact with flowing water. Don't believe the claims that miners caused a great eal of Mercury pollution. It simply is not true.--N.M.Sheedy —Preceding unsigned comment added by N.M.Sheedy (talk • contribs) 20:55, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

AlaskaMining 22:40, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Interesting: how can you write an article on gold mining without once mentioning South Africa, the greatest gold ming country ever? Sessisie. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sessisie (talk • contribs) 08:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Mercury was indeed used in the early California sluice boxes in a system where a series of holes were drilled in the floor of the box(the so called pockets) and mercury was placed therein.The water was turned on and the gravel allowed to flow over the pockets.Read "Seeing the Elephant" in the California Journal of Mines and geology for further information on this system. Mercury,being a liquid,escaped not only from sluices,but also from overloaded mercury coated copper plates in the stamp mills. The streams in Grass Valley,California,where there were many stamp mills but no native mercury deposits,yield a rich harvest of gold laden mercury to modern day suction dredgers.This being said,mercury usually settles to bedrock and is thus not normally ingested by the aquatic life.Dredging helps to remove it from the ecosystem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jawbone123 (talk • contribs) 07:01, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Ron Paul
Yo, should Ron Paul be put in here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dmac (talk • contribs) 17:40, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Emmons 1937
I've removed a bunch of outdated material obviously taken from "Gold Deposits of the World" by William Harvey Emmons (1937). No credit was given as to the source (user contends that it is in the public domain) and thus amounts to plagiarism - credit is needed. The main problem is that the information is severely out of date including Irish Free State and Southern Rhodesia headers. The state of gold mining in 1937 would be of interest in an article on the history of the topic, but not very relevant on the current status of gold mining. Vsmith (talk) 15:31, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Emmons is outdated but his lines of research have been largely neglected in the last 70 years,as economic gold geology has been an unfashionable pursuit due to the stigma placed upon it in the academic community.Thus his subject matter alone makes fascinating reading ,and covers ground that has been lightly trodden since his pioneering work.Where else can you find,in one book,maps and descriptions of gold districts all over the world?(--and---it has a gold cover too)! User:Jawbone.

?? plagiarism ??
I was in communication with a geologist under my talk to enter a source reference. History is relevant to the topic because traditional methods have been replaced with technology. Where it was is where it still is. This is evident in Mexico.

The source of information is from a 132 year old geologist, born in 1876, who puiblished his work in 1937. "Gold Deposits of the World" by William Harvey Emmons, 1937 First Edition

I consulted the http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm - where it is noted that the publication, since being published prior to 1963 (71 years ago), is considered in the public domain scheme of things. A further search on http://collections.stanford.edu/copyrightrenewals/bin/page?forward=home - received no hits.

Plagiarism was not intended nor implied.Rodeney (talk) 19:23, 31 August 2008 (UTC)Rodeney

pollution caused
aren't there any sources about pollution caused from Gold mines/ ecological ways of gold mining? they're needed.--CuteHappyBrute (talk) 21:49, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

agreed. see below NittyG (talk) 09:19, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

History of Mining Expansion
This is an important subject in the history of the world, and there is only a small mention of what the Romans did and some obscure aspects of their history with gold. I would think that nearly every major civilization mined gold. The wikipedia article on gold is in fact a good place to start. If the methods they used elsewhere were basically the same, then that should be mentioned, and there should not be any specific reference to a particular civilization, as it shows a bias (in this case a bit Western-centric). I suppose if there is something interesting about the Romans, that can be mentioned, but the way the article is written, it conveys that the only known history of gold mining is of the Romans. NittyG (talk) 09:16, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Social and Environmental Impacts
This topic is desperately needed. I looked over this article for information on this topic. As the social and environmental impacts are inextricably linked, I suggest that they should be combined in one section.

I am actually new to Wikipedia, and don't know the ethics, and didn't want to step on any toes or violate rules, so I'm reposting what someone put that was moved to the discuss page, in order to center the discussion. Feel free to delete the stuff above, or combine this with what's there to avoid redundancy, or combine this stuff in some way (and delete this paragraph). If you can, please explain to me the rules


 * Pmetzger wrote:
 * __________________________


 * It is clear that the following text is NOT NPOV. I have moved it here to the talk page temporarily so that editing suggestions can be discussed prior to moving an NPOV version back to the main page.


 * Human rights violations in large-scale goldmining


 * Open pit gold mining destroys large portions of fertile land and water bodies. Rural communities face involuntary resettlement, often without adequate compensation. Civil society organisations from all continents call on governments to stop irresponsible gold mining:Berlin Declaration 2005: stop irresponsible gold mining


 * For those that do not understand the issue, Wikipedia is not a forum for advocacy for any cause whatsoever -- it is a neutral provider of information. That means that it is not a place for people to try to recruit people to their cause, to explain how evil a particular industry is, how good a particular industry is, or anything else like that. All articles have to have a NEUTRAL viewpoint.


 * In this particular case, I would propose that the given section be altered to discuss the pros and cons of gold mining, explain the existence of controversy, and to provide links (without specific endorsement of any sort) to organizations on both sides of such issues.


 * --Pmetzger 15:01, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * _________________________________________________________


 * I think it is important to add to the section that gold has had a great socioeconomic impact with the financial system, maybe with a link to another wikipedia article on the subject. That is important to keep in mind, because even though there may have been social and environmental problems with mining, the gold gave people the ability to be independent, as well as finance trade (which also has its impacts). Again, this should only be a mention, with a link, because it's a subject more for, say, the page on gold.

^ Not me. This issue should merit another article as for every mining method, there are mostly different environmental risks and hazards. I agree that there should be a brief mention. Revue (talk) 03:16, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Gold Mining Industry
There should be some outline of the mining industry. I would think that this should in fact be another article entirely. Either way, it should at least be started within this article. With the time I had to find info, here's a place to start: [Deal Would Create Largest Gold-Mining Firm]
 * There is a general mining article already. Feel free to add to that. It can be summarized here as necessary, with a link pointing to the main article.  Turgan Talk 19:32, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

yes gold mining area should e increased San stirrff (talk) 19:16, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Recreational vs. Commercial Gold Mining
There are big differences between the small scale outdoor hobby of weekend gold prospecting that involves individuals, families, and their clubs and the large scale commercial gold mine operations around the world. You can't really compare the two but it seems some editors try to mix the two and make the issue very fuzzy in order to get their emotional point across.

The hobby prospectors are helping the environment by removing the toxic metals like lead and cadmium from the waters and agitating the stream bed on a very small scale like what happens after a rainstorm but only in a much smaller area. Fish love the food that was once compacted on the bottom and fish love to spawn in loose gravel beds. Eighthcreek (talk) 04:31, 30 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The best way to emphasize the difference would be for you to split it off into a separate article titled Recreational gold mining or something similar, with a link in this article. Plazak (talk) 13:46, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Possible source
Someone recently created an article with a copy-paste job of the link below. I've since redirected the article here, but thought it might be a useful reference of some kind here. --AbsolutDan (talk) 00:43, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/prospect1/goldgip.html

costs and cost of production
I am always interested in the monetary costs associated with mining, and in particular the cost per ounce for gold mining given the wild swings in market price. The environmental costs can be mitigated with technology, such as water treatment, reclamation, underground mining instead of surface mining, etc., so we can put a monetary price on the environmental costs. Mulp (talk) 17:57, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Productivity, efficiency and profit of mines and mining regions?
It would be very nice if a list were compiled listing which mines (or regions) currently produce the most gold per year, and which mines have produced the most throughout their history. (Including historical cases like Las Medulas in Spain) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.117.226.247 (talk) 02:04, 1 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. It will help demystify assumptions and be crucial in the debate of human rights link gold industry by showing the efficiency or inefficiency of using war and slavery to make money from gold mining versus industrial technology assisted mining in peaceful regions where there is gold.--SvenAERTS (talk) 22:27, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Mercury again
I have added a section on mercury problems and added two external links to UNDP projects to alleviate the problem from mercury pollution. Peterlewis (talk) 18:52, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Please add a citation inline, external links are not considered references for an article. Yworo (talk) 19:00, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Maybe not, but they're a good start. Peterlewis (talk) 20:08, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Why can't you be bothered to add a proper citation? You've been around Wikipedia since 2006, you should know better. Yworo (talk) 20:19, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

You are clearly a newcomer: citations follow later. Get the basic facts first then go thru the mechanics. Citations in line needs careful work, so don't be so impatient. Peterlewis (talk) 21:46, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

History
The history section makes absolutely no sense. It states "Gold was first mined in the area of the Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) in Bangarpet Taluk of Kolar District of Karnataka state, India, prior to the 2nd and 3rd century AD." First off, if it was before the second century doesn't it stand to reason it was before the third century. Secondly and more importantly, gold was mined long before the the second century AD. Austen1v (talk) 08:55, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Gold mining vs. Gold extraction
Hi, can someone explain the difference between Gold mining vs. Gold extraction ? For me these two articles are about the same thing and their content are not really different. Thank you Snipre (talk) 20:48, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Mining is getting the ore out of the ground and extraction is removing the gold from the rock after the ore has been mined. The only overlap appears to be the Gold ore processing and its Cyanide process section in the mining article - which is about extraction and thus that detail belongs in the extraction article. Vsmith (talk) 22:10, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 16:28, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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Gold Mining in Latin America
Since many natural resources come from the Amazon rainforest it may be beneficial to discuss the extent to which gold mining, specifically illegal gold mining, contributes to environmental degradation. In addition, I wonder the extent to which the process to extract gold and the use of mercury impacts both local and global persons.Cdsj0497 (talk) 20:56, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

"Further reading" item removed
This was put in the Further reading section, but it's impossible for any reader to use:

"Nigeria: Human Rights Watch Examines Gold Mining And Lead Poisoning in Zamfara State"

Perhaps the OP will return & fix it? --Pete Tillman (talk) 06:03, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

It is impossible to know...
Under History:

“It is impossible to know the exact date that humans first began to mine gold...”

This is poorly worded, and worse, inaccurate. Statements like that cannot be known to be true and shouldn’t be used so I’m changing it to:

“The exact date that humans first began to mine gold is unknown...” 2601:180:10C:61EB:D967:E0F2:DEC6:6028 (talk) 21:24, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Remove or requote Carlin Unconformity production percentage?
This reference on the main page "Dan Oancea – Carlin: Where the Train Stops and the Gold Rush Begins" (no. 7) is no longer accessible and so now it's difficult to provide a percentage of overall above-ground gold that the Carlin Unconformity produced. The page on the Carlin Unconformity gives an estimate that 70M ounces of gold was produced here which is approximately 1.1% of overall gold mined based on the World Gold Council's end-2019 figures of 197,576 tonnes (70,000,000 / 6,352,216,000 = 0.01102 or 1.102%). This is a lot lower than the 2.5% previously quoted on this page so either a lot more gold has been mined since this source was last accessed or the report was already quite old. It might be worth stating this figure as a value rather than a percentage, or removing this figure all together unless 1.1% is still a significant figure when it comes to global gold production from a single mine / mining area? I tried searching for the report myself but didn't have any luck in finding an online and accessible version of it (sorry if I missed an obvious trick in re-locating the inacessible article!).

Anonymous-owl-contributor (talk) 00:58, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Realistic?
The great majority of gold is coming from ppm-level ores. This article shows, IMHO, a distorted view. Six pictures of gold panning, which fun to do, but accounts for only a low percent of production by my estimates. Also shown are at least two figures of mega nuggets, but finding large chunks of gold is not the way gold is obtained in a practical sense.--Smokefoot (talk) 22:25, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree that the selection of pictures could better reflect the importance of methods. Have you got a concrete proposal of more relevant pictures? --Leyo 10:14, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: ERTH 4303 Resources of the Earth
— Assignment last updated by Spencerladner (talk) 20:17, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Gold rush in Wales
When doing research for my university project, I came across very brief information about a gold rush that occurred around the 19th century in Wales, UK. Is there any reliable information about this that anyone knows of? I think it could be interesting to mention. Jmvelasquez (talk) 02:30, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
 * We have an article about Welsh gold that mentions two specific mines that each have their own article. DMacks (talk) 03:08, 11 April 2024 (UTC)