Where are Gold Sands-style deposits being profitably mined today?
The heyday of gold production from Gold Sands-style of operations in the West was from the 1870s to the 1940s, when large-scale dredging operations produced gold from alluvial fields in the Yukon, Alaska, California, Columbia, New Zealand, New Guinea and Ghana. Some of today’s major mining companies, such as Placer Dome, originated with such operations, but by the early 1950s the major gold mining companies were focusing their attention on hard-rock underground deposits. Large-scale Gold Sands mining all but disappeared in the West. In Russia, however, about 70% of all gold production has always come from alluvial operations. Even today, some 600 companies in Russia produce 2 to 2.5 million ounces of gold per year from alluvial deposits. In the Western Hemisphere, Mineros SA, a local, privately-held company is producing about 100,000 ounces of gold per year from alluvial ore at El Bagre, on the Nechà River in Colombia. The ore there grades about 145 milligrams per cubic meter – about h
