How to dig for gold in your backyard : johannesburg south africa

Pierre Jansen

December 10, 2023

How to find gold in any river, Mining Gold, Where can I pan for gold?

How to find gold in any river:

How to dig for gold in your backyard : America and Johannesburg south Africa

Where can you pan for gold in South Africa?

The main gold producing greenstone belts are the Barberton greenstone belt and the Kraaipan greenstone belt. The Barberton greenstone belt is situated in Mpumalanga province, just north of Swaziland. The Kraaipan belt is located west of Johannesburg, near Kuruman.

Gold Mining DIY in South Africa

Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface, has led to more complex extraction processes such as pit mining and gold cyanidation. In the 20th and 21st centuries, most volume of mining was done by large corporations; however, the value of gold has led to millions of small, artisanal miners in many parts of the Global South.

Like all mining, human rights and environmental issues are common in the gold mining industry, and can result in environmental conflict. In mines with less regulation, health and safety risks are much higher.

Over three quarters of all gold is used for jewelry.^[1]

History[edit]

The exact date that humans first began to mine gold is unknown, but some of the oldest known gold artifacts were found in the Varna Necropolis in Bulgaria. The graves of the necropolis were built between 4700 and 4200 BC, indicating that gold mining could be at least 7000 years old.^[2] A group of German and Georgian archaeologists claims the Sakdrisi site in southern Georgia, dating to the 3rd or 4th millennium BC, may be the world’s oldest known gold mine.^[3]

Evidence suggests that Nubia had sporadic access to gold nuggets during the Neolithic and Prehistoric Period. During the Bronze Age, sites in the Eastern Desert became a great source of gold-mining for nomadic Nubians, who used “two-hand-mallets” and “grinding ore extraction.” By the Old Kingdom, the oval mallet was introduced for mining. By the Middle Kingdom, stone mortars to process ores and a new gold-washing technique were introduced. During the New Kingdom, Nubian mining expanded under Egyptian occupation with the invention of the grinding mill.^[4]

Bronze Age gold objects were also plentiful, especially in Ireland and Spain, and there are several well known possible sources. Romans used hydraulic mining methods, such as hushing and ground sluicing on a large scale to extract gold from extensive alluvial (loose sediment) deposits, such as those at Las Medulas. Mining was under the control of the state but the mines may have been leased to civilian contractors some time later. The gold served as the primary medium of exchange within the empire, and was an important motive in the Roman conquest of Britain by Claudius in the first century AD, although there is only one known Roman gold mine at Dolaucothi in west Wales. Gold was a prime motivation for the campaign in Dacia when the Romans invaded Transylvania in what is now modern Romania in the second century AD. The legions were led by the emperor Trajan, and their exploits are shown on Trajan’s Column in Rome and the several reproductions of the column elsewhere (such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London).^[5] Under the Eastern Roman Empire Emperor Justinian’s rule, gold was mined in the Balkans, Anatolia, Armenia, Egypt, and Nubia.^[6]

In the area of the Kolar Gold Fields in Bangarpet Taluk, Kolar district of Karnataka state, India, gold was first mined prior to the 2nd and 3rd century AD by digging small pits. (Golden objects found in Harappa and Mohenjo-daro have been traced to Kolar through the analysis of impurities – the impurities include 11% silver concentration, found only in KGF ore.^{[citation needed]}) The Champion reef at the Kolar gold fields was mined to a depth of 50 metres (160 ft) during the Gupta period in the fifth century AD. During the Chola period in the 9th and 10th century AD, the scale of the operation grew.^{[citation needed]} The metal continued to be mined by the eleventh century kings of South India, the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1560, and later by Tipu Sultan, the king of Mysore state and the British. It is estimated that the total gold production in Karnataka to date is 1000 tons.^[7]

The mining of the Hungarian deposit (present-day Slovakia) primarily around Kremnica was the largest of the Medieval period in Europe.^[8]

During the 19th century, numerous gold rushes in remote regions around the globe caused large migrations of miners, such as the California Gold Rush of 1849, the Victorian Gold Rush, and the Klondike Gold Rush. The discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand led to the Second Boer War and ultimately the founding of South Africa. Gold-bearing reefs in the neighbouring Free State province were found shortly thereafter, driving significant development in the region with the establishment of the Free State goldfields.

The Carlin Trend of Nevada, U.S., was discovered in 1961. Official estimates indicate that total world gold production since the beginning of civilization has been around 6,352,216,000 troy ounces (197,576.0 t) and total gold production in Nevada is 1.1% of that, ranking Nevada as one of the Earth’s primary gold-producing regions.^[9]^[10]

Statistics[edit]

World gold production was 3,612 tonnes in 2022.^[11] As of 2020, the world’s largest gold producer was China with 368.3 tonnes of gold mined in that year. The second-largest producer of gold was Russia where 331.1 tonnes was mined in the same year, followed by Australia with 327.8 tonnes.^[12]

Despite its decreasing content in ores, gold production is increasing. This increase can be achieved through ever larger-scale industrial installations as well as innovations, especially in hydrometallurgy.