Gold :: Minerals Natural Resources Essays

grand luxurious is a very cat valium mineral that is mined and urbane in the United States and all over the world. One of the most common processes used for the mining and processing of grand in the United States is hammock permeateing. The extraction of gold from low grade desexs has been one of the main factors in higher output since the 1970s using this form of mining (www.pamp.com). fractional of all production, in the United States, of low grade minerals comes from heap leaching. It is a low cost, effective process which began at the Placer Developments Cortez open pit in Nevada in 1973 (www.pamp.com). Heap leaching recovers gold from sub-grade mine waste or mill tailings. The native gold is taken into solution as gold cyanide and recovered by adsorption and activated carbon (Halleck 2/19). It is very effective in removing gold from deposits filled with many otherwise minerals as well. The ore removed from the heap leaching is discarded onto open-air leach pads. Cyanide is then sprayed over the ore and sits there for several weeks allowing the cyanide to run into the deposit. The cyanide extracts the gold from the ore and drips off of the leach pad on which the ore deposit sits. The gold solution runs into the pregnant pond where it is then pumped to the recuperation plant. Zinc dust is then added to the solution causing gold and silver to precipitate. This product is then sent to refineries where the gold and silver are disordered from each other (www.blm.gov). The use of cyanide is a great environmental hazard. The cyanide affects the area in which it is used as well as the community surrounding the area of the mine. Some examples of cyanide causing raging situations are at the Zortman-Landusky Mine in Montana, the Summitville Mine in Colorado, the Kumtor Gold Mine in Kyrgyzstan, Asia, and the Aural Gold Plant in Romania. At the Zortman-Landusky mine 52,000 gallons of cyanide so lution drained into the fresh water come forth of a nearby town.