How do placer miners recover placer gold?
Placer gold is recovered when the gravels are sluiced or washed in flowing water in a sluice box or wash plant. The heaviest particles, including gold, settle to the bottom. Many placer deposits are covered by frozen layers of sediments. Water is used to thaw these frozen materials, and at the same time, to wash the gold loose. The water carries the gold, sand and gravel in a slurry to the sluice box. Early prospectors and turn-of-the-19th-century gold miners used picks, shovels and hand tools to dig down through frozen soil and gravel layers, often working as deep as a hundred feet underground in narrow shafts and tunnels. Modern miners use heavy equipment like bulldozers and excavators to move the layers of soil and gravel out of the way, in order to uncover the gold-bearing gravels. Sometimes water courses may need to be diverted while mining takes place, to allow the miner to get at the ‘pay dirt’ underneath. The sluicing process washes away many other fine materials from the gold
