Talk:Gold mining

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no change ok? good enough easy to find information

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


Contents

[edit] "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)

[edit] 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?

[edit] 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).

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Ron Paul

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