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GOLD RUSH DESCRIPTION
A gold rush is a period
of feverish migration of workers into the
area of a discovery of commercial quantities of gold. Eight
gold rushes took place throughout the 19th century in Argentina,
Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa, and the
United States. Gold rushes helped spur permanent
non-indigenous settlement of new
regions and define a significant part of the culture of the North
American and Australian frontiers.
Gold rushes extend as far back as
the Roman Empire, and further back to
Ancient Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
With gold prices soaring and poverty increasing the world is currently
experiencing an unprecedented gold rush. There
are about 13 million to 20 million small-scale miners around the
world, according to Communities and Small-Scale Mining (CASM).
Approximately 100 million people are directly or indirectly dependent
on small-scale mining. There are 800,000 to 1.5 million artisanal
miners in Democratic Republic of Congo, 350,000 to 650,000 in Sierra
Leone, and 150,000 to 250,000 in Ghana, with millions more across
Africa.
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Environmentalists
say the rivers get destroyed and dredging disrupts fish spawning,
muddies river
water and can
hurt or kill aquatic organisms. Mechanised
suction dredges work from water at the river bottom can improve
rivers by removing harmful metals dumping the
leftover gravel,
sand, and
silt back in the river
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and holding the
goldback in
a sluice.
Ken Rucker, general manager of Membership of the
Gold
Prospectors of America Association says that prospecting can improve
rivers by removing harmful metals like lead and mercury and breaking
up river beds.
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Discovery of placer gold has often
resulted in discovery of lode gold (Hard Rock) deposits when the
placers are traced to their sources. Prospectors for hard rock, or
lode gold deposits, can use many tools. It is done at the simplest
level by surface examination of rock outcrops, looking for exposures
of mineral veins, hydrothermal alteration, or rock types known to
host gold deposits. Field tools may be nothing more than a rock
hammer and hand lens. Most gold today is produced in large open-pit
and deep underground mines. However, small-scale gold mining is still
common on the waterways, especially in third-world countries. back
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Placer
mining (usually /'plæsɜ(r)/,
also /'pleɪsɜ(r)/ is the mining of alluvial deposits for minerals.
This may be done by open-pit (also called open-cast mining) or by
various forms of tunnelling into ancient riverbeds. Excavation may be
accomplished using water pressure (hydraulic mining), surface
excavating equipment or tunnelling equipment. |
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GOLD
RUSH AMERICAS
