Determination of Gold deposit from Geographical samples.

Write an essay on how Gold deposit is determined from Geographical samples in the Lithosphere.

Introduction

Gold is the most noble element of all the metals and is considered as rare metal, since on average, the
earth contains less than one-third of a gram of gold for each tone of its mass. The earth’s metallic core is
enriched in gold relative to this average value. Gold may be considered the most biocompatible of all
elements since it appears not to be implicated in any harmful reactions or catalysis within animal bodies.
It is the only metal, for example, that is not attacked in air or water by either oxygen or Sulphur, and its
durability under the most corrosive conditions has led to its widespread use in coinage and jewellery
through the ages. Gold is the only metal that is generally found in nature in the metallic state. It is also
present in our oceans in trace quantities.

Gold ore deposits are found in rocks throughout the earth’s geological history, from the earliest
Precambrian—more than 3.1 billion years old—to the present. The ore of gold contained minute
concentrations are present as isolated atoms of gold distributed as impurities in the minerals that make
up the rock. However, in very localized places gold is found in concentrated amounts or deposits where it
can be profitably extracted by mining. The value of gold in commercial relations makes secure and
substantial domestic source of gold a significant national asset which thereby, contribute to the national
well-being. It is the key to both economic wealth and its many practical uses in industry.

This scope of essay will take on elaboration of types of gold deposits, the method of extraction, fire
assaying, sample digestion and instrumentation of gold.

Types of gold deposit

Gold has been mined throughout the world from a great variety of deposit types and of all geologic ages.
Gold ore deposits are found in rocks throughout the earth’s geological history (more than 3.1 billion years)
and can still be seen today forming in some active geothermal areas. It is an intrinsic component of the
earth’s metallic core and is enriched in the mantle. Many sulfide deposits formed by igneous processes
from deep-sourced melts are enriched in gold. Closer to the earth’s surface, gold is enriched by a further
two mechanisms. Because of the resistant nature of gold during weathering, gold survives the process of
rock erosion at the surface and can become mechanically concentrated into placer or alluvial and
hydrothermal activity deposits.

Hydrothermal gold deposit- where gold is mobilized from its primary site in rock forming minerals or early
discrete phases and then precipitated from solution into a new phase.

Geographical sampling

Seismic Method

Surface seismic techniques used in gold exploration are restricted to seismic refraction and seismic
reflection methods. Probably, the first one is the most employed. The equipment employed for both
techniques is very similar and assure the travel time of acoustic waves propagating through the
subsurface. In the seismic refraction method, the travel time of waves refracted along an acoustic
interface is measured. In the other technique, the travel time of a wave which reflects off an interface is
measured.

figure 1.1 shows seismographic detection of gold.

Sample Extraction

It is essential in the evaluation of a gold deposit to have, as accurately as possible, a model of the
mineralized zone geometry, shape, size, quality, variability, and limits. Physical, chemical and geological
characteristics may vary greatly within a single deposit and from deposit to deposit. Critical data can be
collected in a variety of ways, including drilling, surface and/or underground mapping, geophysical or
geochemical surveys, or studies of rock mechanics properties, mineralogical types and relations.

Sampling

The initial prospecting work is conducted on the potential place and consists in taking samples. The first
samples are grab as single pieces and later can be composited if were necessary in nature, lacking any
definite width characteristics, but useful in identifying local mineralization and possible geochemically
anomalous zones. The rock sampling can be done by regular people, but ideally a geologist must oversee
this task. It is important to determine sample station using handheld GPS devices, usually accurate to
within 5-10 m. As was mentioned samples are initially grab in nature, but also, it is important to take chip
samples across structures and veins in order to determine widths of mineralization and the presence of
any wall rock mineralization near to these structures.

The samples can be assayed for several elements if there is not any economical restriction, otherwise the
assays must include at least gold and silver. In this way we can know a preliminary distribution of metals.
For example, of 100 samples collected the average gold value can be 2 g/t, with 40 samples reporting
more than 1 g/t gold. Usually, the silver content is higher than gold content.

figure 1.2 shows the sample collection using shovel

Sampling the sample for extraction comes in varying methods which includes, use of hand-dug
excavations, machine dug shafts, backhoe pits or trenches, bulldozer trenches and churn drill holes.

Acquiring a representative gold sample is seldom easy and in almost all cases sample results need a large
measure of interpretation. Some of the underlying reasons why mining & geology sampling is difficult are:
Large particle sizes to be sampled with, a representative sample should contain all of the constituents of
a deposit and in exactly the same proportion in which they occur in the parent mass.

This deposit is a mixture of fine sand, pebbles and boulders varying graded from very fine sand to a larger
size of high unit-value of gold. When dealing with the typical placer sample containing a high-value mineral
such as gold, any error in mineral content of the sample will be highly magnified in the end result. Consider
that in a commercial placer the relative amount of gold (by volume) may be on the order of one-part gold
to a hundred-million parts of gravel. The actual separation of small amounts of such gold from
overwhelming quantities of sand and gravel seldom presents a serious problem; the real problem is to
take a sample that is representative in the first place.

a
Figure 1.3 shows tools for sample operation.

Fire Assaying

Fire Assay of Ores and Concentrates mixture of the pulverized sample with about three parts of a flux is
placed in an assay crucible and heated in a furnace until the product is molten. This is done in the
temperature of 900 to 1100 oC, which usually requires 25 to 40 minutes. One of the ingredients of the flux
is a lead compound which is reduced by other constituents of the flux or sample to metallic lead. The
latter collects all the gold, together with silver, platinum group metals and small quantities of certain base
metals, and falls to the bottom of the crucible to form a lead button. The gangue of the ore must be
converted by fluxes into a slag sufficiently fluid so that all particles of lead may fall readily through the
molten mass. The choice of a suitable flux depends on the nature of the ore assaying, in chemical analysis,
process of determining proportions of metal, particularly precious metal, in ores and metallurgical
products. The most important technique, still used today, grew largely out of the experiments of the
ancient alchemists and goldsmiths in seeking to find or create precious metals by subjecting base metals
and minerals to heat. More sophisticated methods, such as spectrographic analysis, are not suited to
assaying precious metal ores because of the large sample required; precious metals tend to occur as
scattered particles randomly distributed, so that a large sample of the ore must be taken. Such large
samples—typically containing gold, silver, and lead—can be most economically assayed by the fire
method, which usually consists of six steps:

1. Sampling: a representative proportion is taken.

2. Fusion: the sample is melted in a crucible with suitable fluxes and other agents so that droplets of lead
collect the precious metal and descend through the sample in the crucible. The lead alloy is cooled to
produce a metallic “button,” and the slag is discarded.

3. Cupellation: the button is melted in an oxidizing atmosphere in order to oxidize impurities, including
lead and other metals. The silver melts and dissolves the other precious metals, forming a “bead” of silver,
gold, and platinum metals sometimes referred to as doré.
4. Weighing: the bead is weighed to determine the total of gold and silver (the platinum metals are
present in too little quantity to affect the measurement).

5. Parting: the bead is treated with hot dilute nitric acid to dissolve out the silver. If the gold content of
the bead is known to exceed 25 percent, its concentration is first reduced by adding silver in a procedure
known as inquartation.

6. Weighing: the remnant of gold is weighed and subtracted from the gold-silver bead weight to give the
weight of silver.

Fire-assaying methods are also used to determine easily reducible base metals such as lead, bismuth, tin,
antimony, and copper

Digestion /sample dissolution

Dissolution of Gold is not dissolved in single acids, but is readily soluble in aqua regia. Aqua regia is a
chemical solution that is obtained by mixing one-part nitric acid and four parts hydrochloric acid (1:4). It
can dissolve gold, platinum, titanium, and other noble metals. Because most base metals are soluble in
nitric acid, hydrochloric acid or sulphuric acid, treatment of many samples with one of these mineral acids
serves to isolate or concentrate gold in a small residue. Acid digestion with aqua regia followed by analysis
by Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS). Gold is also dissolved by the alkali cyanides in the presence of
oxygen. Although nearly all the world's gold output is extracted in this way, the reaction is only
occasionally used in chemical analysis. If a residue remains after aqua regia treatment, it must be brought
into solution by the action of hydrofluoric acid, or by fusion with sodium carbonate or other (fluxes).

Essentially state and corrosion resistant, gold dissolution is not easily obtained by just any acid. Use an
oxidation agent like manganese dioxide, nitric acid, oxygen, ferric ions or cupric ions and gold will dissolve.
The formation of Aqua Regia by nitric and hydrochloric acids will break down gold and make it go into
solution. The reason behind the fact that gold solid is largely unreactive is because the electrons in gold
fall at energies which few molecules or chemicals match (i.e., due to relativistic effects). Aqua regia is used
for dissolving gold.

In the presence of an oxidizing agent in an aqueous solution, gold dissolves to form another compound.

Cyanide dissolution is also the best known way of gold extraction from ores by using cyanide solution (CN-
) in the presence of oxygen (to oxidize). CN- ions where in the solution are used to extract Au and Ag.
Crushed ore is treated with aqueous cyanide solution in the presence of oxygen and water to dissolve Au
and forming soluble complex ion, [Au(CN)2]- in aqueous solution: The reaction explain the concept.

4Au(s) + 8CN-(aq) + O2(g) + 2H2O(l) → 4[Au(CN)2 ]-(aq) + 4OH-(aq)

Gold is then separated in metallic form from reaction of Au(CN)2- solution with zinc to reduce Au+ to Au:

2[Au(CN)2 ]-(aq) + Zn(s) → [Zn(CN)4 ]2-(aq) + 2Au(s)

The specific steps of cyanidation gold extraction process mainly include: ore's preparation stage, leaching
stage and metal recovery stage.

(1) Ore's Preparation Stage

The preparation stage of ore is an essential process for gold extraction, which is mainly by crushing and
grinding the ore to reduce the particle size of the ore. It can ensure that gold is present in the cyanide
aqueous solution in the most economical form of recovery, thereby increasing the gold recovery rate.

In addition to the crushing and grinding process, gold ore containing sulphide or carbonaceous minerals
requires additional treatment prior to recycling. This is because cyanide leaches out sulfide firstly rather
than metal, which will cause the consumption of cyanide. To counteract this effect, these ores can first
through the flotation process to limit the interaction with cyanide during the leaching process. In addition,
it is also possible to change the leaching process by adding activated carbon to preferentially adsorb gold.

(2) Leaching Stage

The concentration of cyanide used in the leaching process ranges from 300 to 500 mg / l (0.03 to 0.05%
in terms of CN- solution), mainly depending on the mineralogy of the ore.

In the leaching process, the grinded ore is first conveyed to a series of leaching tanks, and the slurry is
stirred by mechanical force or by injecting air to increase the contact between cyanide and gold and
improve the leaching efficiency. The cyanide then dissolves the gold from the ore to form a stable metal-
cyanide complex. At the beginning of the leaching, the pH of the slurry is raised to pH 10-11 using lime to
ensure that it can’t produce toxic hydrogen cyanide gas when cyanide is added.

(3) Gold Recovery

Activated carbon is used in the dissolved gold extraction process, either by introducing it directly into the
CIL (carbon-in-leach) tanks or into separate CIP (carbon-in-pulp) tanks after leaching. The activated carbon
adsorbs the dissolved metal from the leach slurry thereby concentrating it onto solids. The carbon is then
separated from the slurry by screening and subjected to further treatment to recover the adsorbed metal.

Instrumentation

Following a crushing, grinding, or pulverizing step, which can be very expensive, pretreatment uses some
physical or chemical difference to separate mineral from gangue. The common pretreatment techniques
for gold extraction using hydrometallurgical process known as leaching, usually accomplished via
formation of a complex ion, the crushed ore treated with cyanide solution in the presence of oxygen which
oxidize gold (I) ion, Au+, which forms a soluble complex ion, Au(CN)2-. On the other hand this method is
controversial, because cyanide enters streams and lakes can poison fish, birds and other living organism
in the river.
Mining instruments provide real-time monitoring of materials handling equipment including crushers,
mills, pumps, flotation cells, and cleaners. They are also used to monitor fill levels in transportation
vehicles, silos and storage tanks. Types of instrumentation frequently used for mining control and
monitoring include point level instrumentation, continuous level instrumentation, non-contact level
measurement instrumentation, pressure and temperature gauges, and automation control.

Flow Meters: Measure the flow rate of liquids and are useful for dispensing applications. These
instruments can be tailored towards the exact need.

Whether you need to measure gallons per minute or liters per second to

ensure repeatability and product consistency.

Level Instrumentation: Continuous and point level instrumentation includes a range of floats, probes, and
switches for measuring and monitoring fluid levels in holding tanks and other vessels.

Temperature Instrumentation: Maintaining proper temperatures is critical in the production and storage
of food and beverages. We provide a range of temperature instrumentation including sensors and heaters
for monitoring cooking processes and ensuring ingredients and finished products are produced and stored
at the appropriate temperatures.

Pressure Instrumentation: Various types of gauges, transmitters, and sensors are used to measure and
display density, flow rates, fluid levels and more. These instruments help improve safety and quality
control by monitoring critical functions and sending a signal where pressures reach low or high levels.

Conclusion

Gold is a rare element in crustal rocks due to its generally chalcophile properties; it is increasingly enriched
in mantle rocks and particularly the metallic core. It is a highly inert metal and therefore special treatment
is to be done to dissolve it, thus very strong oxidizing agent is used to oxidize gold.

Gold is very unreactive and does not dissolve in most acids. However, it does dissolve in aqua regia (Latin
for “royal water”), which is a mixture of concentrated hydrochloric and nitric acids. The fire assay method,
as the oldest and the most accurate method for the determination of gold which is a expensive process.
All in all for that matter aqua regia employs the best and simple methods with high purity of gold.