A compound of gold is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. Gold is primarily found as the pure, native metal. Sylvanite and calaverite are gold-bearing minerals.
Gold is usually found embedded in quartz veins, or placer stream gravel. Skip to content Return to Periodic Table. Biological Rating. Related topics: Gold Minerals. Primary gold is often what is found in rock formations, which ultimately become mines if there is a substantial amount of gold.
For these types of gold, it is highly likely that the gold will be found alongside other valuable minerals, like quartz and silver. Many mining companies that sell gold from their mining efforts will also sell the other minerals as well. Secondary gold is found in small waterways that have run through these rock and mineral formations.
When the current is strong enough for streams, rivers and creeks to accomplish it, the water will carry pieces of gold, often referred to as small nuggets or flakes, down through the path. As the gold is carried from the formation down the waterway, pieces settle on the beds or floors and eventually get covered in dirt and sand.
While it is a little uncommon, some people have found rather large nuggets of gold panning these waterways. Read more common gold questions. All rights reserved. Common gold questions. Where is gold found in the world?
Related Pages: Who discovered the element gold? Who discovered gold? Where was gold found? Where is gold located? Where is gold found? Where is gold found on earth? Streams draining the rich Mother Lode region--the Feather, Mokelumne, American, Cosumnes, Calaveras, and Yuba Rivers--and the Trinity River in northern California have concentrated considerable quantities of gold in gravels. In addition, placers associated with gravels that are stream remnants from an older erosion cycle occur in the same general area.
Much of the gold produced in Alaska was mined from placers. These deposits are widespread, occurring along many of the major rivers and their tributaries. Some ocean beach sands also have been productive.
The principal placer-mining region has been the Yukon River basin which crosses central Alaska. Dredging operations in the Fairbanks district have been the most productive in the State. Beach deposits in the Nome district in the south-central part of the Seward Peninsula rank second among productive placer deposits of Alaska. Other highly productive placers have been found in the drainage basin of the Copper River and of the Kuskokwim River. In Montana , the principal placer-mining districts are in the southwestern part of the State.
Other important placer localities are on the Missouri River in the Helena mining district. The famous Last Chance Gulch is the site of the city of Helena. There are many districts farther south on the headwaters and tributaries of the Missouri River, especially in Madison County which ranks third in total gold production in the State. Gold has been produced at many places on the headwaters of the Clark Fork of the Columbia River, particularly in the vicinity of Butte.
Placer production from the Butte district, however, has been over-shadowed by the total output of byproduct gold recovered from the mining of lode deposits of copper, lead, and zinc. Idaho was once a leading placer-mining State. One of the chief dredging areas is in the Boise Basin, a few miles northeast of Boise, in the west-central part of the State.
Other placer deposits are located along the Salmon River and on the Clearwater River and its tributaries, particularly at Elk City, Pierce, and Orofino. Extremely fine-grained or "flour" gold occurs in sand deposits along the Snake River in southern Idaho. In both areas large dredges were used during the peak activity in the 's. The most important mining regions of Oregon are in the northeastern part of the State where both lode and placer gold have been found. Placer gold occurs in many streams that drain the Blue and Wallowa Mountains.
One of the most productive placer districts in this area is in the vicinity of Sumpter, on the upper Powder River. The Burnt River and its tributaries have yielded gold. Farther to the west, placer mining particularly dredging has been carried on for many years in the John Day River valley. In southwestern Oregon, tributaries of the Rogue River and neighboring streams in the Klamath Mountains have been sources of placer gold. Among the main producing districts in this region are the Greenback district in Josephine County and the Applegate district in Jackson County.
Minor amounts of placer gold have been produced in South Dakota the Black Hills region, particularly in the Deadwood area, and on French Creek, near Custer and in Washington on the Columbia and Snake Rivers and their tributaries. In addition to these localities, placer gold occurs along many of the intermittent and ephemeral streams of arid regions in Nevada , Arizona , New Mexico , and southern California. In many of these places a large reserve of low-grade placer gold may exist, but the lack of a permanent water supply for conventional placer mining operations requires the use of expensive dry or semidry concentrating methods to recover the gold.
In the eastern States, limited amounts of gold have been washed from some streams draining the eastern slope of the southern Appalachian region in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama.
Many saprolite disintegrated somewhat decomposed rock that lies in its original place deposits in this general region also have been mined by placer methods. Small quantities of gold have been mined by placer methods in some New England States. Additional placer deposits may be discovered in the East, but prospecting will require substantial expenditures of time and money. The deposits probably will be low grade, difficult to recognize, and costly to explore and sample. Moreover, most of the land in the East is privately owned, and prospecting can be done only with the prior permission and agreement of the land owner.
Lode gold occurs within the solid rock in which it was deposited. Areas likely to contain valuable lode deposits of gold have been explored so thoroughly that the inexperienced prospector without ample capital has little chance of discovering a new lode worth developing. Most future discoveries of workable lode gold ore probably will result from continued investigations in areas known to be productive in the past.
The districts in which such new discoveries of gold may be possible are too numerous to be listed in detail in this pamphlet. Deposits in these districts generally are gold-quartz lodes. Prospecting for lode deposits of gold is not the relatively simple task it once was because most outcrops or exposures of mineralized rock have been examined and sampled. Today's prospector must examine not only these exposures, but also broken rock on mine dumps and exposures of mineralized rock in accessible mine workings.
Gold, if present, may not be visible in the rock, and detection will depend on the results of laboratory analyses. Usually, samples of 3 to 5 pounds of representative mineralized rock will be sent to a commercial analytical laboratory or assay office for assay. Obviously, knowledge about the geological nature of gold deposits and particularly of the rocks and deposits in the area of interest will aid the prospector.
Sources of Gold Information There are many publications of interest to those seeking more information about gold. The United States Geological Survey has published lots of reports about general geology and mineral resources for most of the major gold-producing areas.
0コメント