Placer-Alluvial Gold Recovery Research

Placer-Alluvial Gold Recovery Research

To be able to work an alluvial gold field with any decree of success you must first understand your equipment how it works and why it works in that particular kind of fashion. There are a lot of factors you must consider when out in the field. Feed rate into your box is very important, mineralisation is another factor if working an area with heavy black sands your equipment will choke up more so if your riffles are all at the same height. Matting and the ease of operation of the unit are all key factors that you should consider. At days end the amount of concentrates you have to clean up is the end result of all the above which comes into play to achieve these ends. Is it not better to retrieve 3 gram of gold from half a pan of concentrate than to have a bucket full of concentrate for the same amount of gold. Choice of equipment is important to be able to make the right choice you must first understand how the plant works and the only way you will get that understanding is to do your research. Do not take the word of the person selling the plant remember this point. There are a lot of people who use Sluices, Highbankers extra but very few know how to work them to their full capacity. The PDF reports that will be posted such as the one below should help you gain that knowledge. Even through the reports come from overseas they are very relevant to our situation here in Australia.

Cheers James 101

http://ygsftp.gov.yk.ca/publications/tech/placerrecovery.pdf
http://ygsftp.gov.yk.ca/publications/tech/fine_gold_recovery_sluiceboxes.pdf
http://ygsftp.gov.yk.ca/publications/tech/gold_loss.pdf
http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/misc/miner/download/PlacerGoldMinerHelp.pdf

G'day James 101,

Every thing you observed is certainly true, especially the 'texture' of the gravel slurry from different areas.
One point that doesn't come across on those Canadian tests by Polling and Clarkson from the mid 70s through 90 is that they only used a certain range of gold particle sizes for their various experiments. In addition to that all the gold and gravel used in those experiments were recovered from the sluiceboxes of different mines. The result of that is that all the gold was predisposed to being captured in riffles since that is where it came from originally.

Having mentioned that, those experiments, in primarily the Yukon, have changed the whole concept of large and small sized gold recovery. At the begining of those experiments some mines were recovering a mere 50% of the gold going through their sluices and at the end some dramatic increases were made. Well worth reading.

KA, yes indeed they are well worth reading. They give a very good insight indeed.
cheers James 101