The Process Of Gold Extraction

Since gold is an alternative investment just as the Iraqi Dinar, I thought for a change we'd explain the process of gold extraction just for fun. Gold extraction is a complicated process that consists of many different methods of acquiring gold from mines. Upon mining, gold is generally sold for a cost that is relevant to its content, weight and purity, making the easiest type of mining for “free” gold, or gold that is not attached to rocks.

Free gold is affordable, because there isn’t a lot of expense put into production, making it much easier for miners and mining companies to get their money’s worth from free gold than from gold that has to be extracted from rocks and walls of a mine and from the ore found in the mine.

“Free” gold is extracted very simply from piles of dirt and rocks, using the simple concept of gravity. If you take a pile of dirt, and run it through a water bath on a screen, the dirt will seep through the screen, leaving the gold and other large rocks left behind on the top of the screen. Gravity plays a large role in getting gold nuggets out of dirt and rocks, because gold is denser than most rocks. This is the way that gold was mined by early miners, and this process is still useful today.

In a later post we will discuss the process of extracting gold from ore and cyanide leaching.