At today's press conference at the Bashinform agency, the head of the subsoil use department for Bashkiria, Rasikh Khamitov, dispelled hopes that the republic would soon become a diamond center of Russia.
There are three or four sites with diamond content in the Beloretsk region, which we are ready to put up for auction, he said. - But the stones there are small - 0.2 carats each. Large ones should be looked for at a depth of 60-100 meters, but the hands of investors have not yet reached them. Nobody wants to wait five years for exploration and other activities.
In fact, this find raises doubts - it is very similar to an alloy, and it is also strange that the ingot was found on arable land. But small nuggets in Bashkiria were found quite often - they were called "cockroaches" because they were the size of a cockroach.
Rasikh Khamitov also said that the State Duma passed the first reading of a bill on the legalization of gold mining at old and abandoned mines. Such a proposal was put forward by the Union of Gold Producers in order to arouse interest in forgotten deposits. If the law is adopted, then any person will be able to mine and hand over to the state up to two kilograms of gold per year.
Aigul NURGALEEVA Bashkir regional supplement to the newspaper Trud-7.
Gold-bearing regions of Russia.
The most promising areas for searching for gold nuggets can be found if you look at the results of gold mining in the Russian Federation in Table 1.
The structure of gold production in 2004: - 43.8% was mined from placers, 50.3% - from primary deposits, 5.9% - associated gold from complex ores. License for gold mining in 2001. owned 639 enterprises, by 2004 - 558. Large enterprises with production of more than 1 ton/year of gold are 30; the total production of which is 15.0% of the all-Russian.
URAL GOLD.
Let us dwell in more detail on the Urals and its eastern and western slopes. There are significant reasons for this;
The Urals is one of the main and oldest centers of gold mining in Russia. The date of the official The discovery and start of gold mining in the Urals is considered to be 1745. However, long before that, the tribes and peoples that inhabited it already knew and mined gold. By the beginning of the 20th century, more than 300 mines were operating and the Urals ranked third in Russia in terms of gold mining, with an average annual volume of about poods. Currently, the main production is in the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions, they occupy 8-11th place in Russia among the gold mining regions. The source of gold is not only primary or alluvial gold deposits, but also gold-bearing complex ore deposits, from which gold is extracted as an associated component. Thus, in 1992, out of 19 tons of gold mined in the Urals region, including Bashkiria and the Orenburg region, 12.7 tons (66.9%) of gold came from complex deposits, 3.7 tons (19.4%) from placers, and only 2.6 tons (13.7%) from to primary deposits.
Primary deposits.
In the Urals, according to the totality of the geological position, morphological characteristics of ore bodies and technical and economic indicators, they are divided into two geological and industrial types: vein and mineralized zones (veinlet-disseminated). The vein deposits are represented by quartz veins 0.5–5 m thick (rarely up to 10–15 m), containing disseminated sulfides (from 1–2 to 40–50%) and belonging mainly to an easily enriched technological type.
The productivity of quartz-vein gold mineralization is mainly associated with the presence of native gold particles in ores. The latter, as a rule, are enclosed in aggregates of sulfide minerals or are deposited in quartz microcracks. Sulfides, like gold, are unevenly distributed in the veins. Their number can vary from 1–2 to 40–50%. Ore bodies in vein-type deposits are, as a rule, quartz veins themselves, however, elevated gold grades (up to 0.5 g/t, rarely up to 3 g/t). Pyrite and arsenopyrite are the most common and early sulfide minerals.
Native gold associated with sulfides in vein deposits has an average and high purity (Au content in native gold, expressed in fractions of 1000) - more than 850. The main impurity component in it is silver.
On the territory of the Orenburg Urals there are more than 150 gold deposits and ore occurrences. Gold reserves are associated with quartz veins in black carbonaceous shales, with placers in deposits of dens and rivers, with "iron hats" - weathering products of rocks by copper pyrite deposits.
The Kirovskoye gold deposit is located 3 km from the village of Beloozerny, Kvarkensky district. The mining of the deposit is carried out by a quarry, the processing of ores is carried out by the method of heap leaching. The Aidyrlinskoye gold deposit of the quartz vein type is located 5 km east of the settlement of Aidyrlinskiy. The deposit has been worked out from the surface, unworked ore has been preserved at depths of more than 100-120 m.
Blakskoye gold deposit of quartz-vein type is located near the village. Blak on the territory of the Svetlinsky district
Placers.
The main polygenic placer deposits are concentrated in the axial part of the Urals at the junction of the Tagil-Magnitogorsk and East Ural structural-geological zones, near the cities: Krasnoturinsk, Nizhny Tagil, Nevyansk, Yekaterinburg, Polevskoy, Upper Ufaley, Karabash, Miass, Verkhneuralsk, etc., as well as on the eastern slope of the Urals and on the Trans-Ural plain around the years. N. Saldy, Rezha, Asbesta, Plast, etc. Almost all predicted resources of placer gold are concentrated here. Placers of the Central Urals zone, along the rivers Pechora, Vishera, Velsa, Ulsu, Vilva, Vizhai, Mezhevaya Utka, the upper reaches of the Ufa and Belaya rivers are of less importance.
The most promising for gold are the upper reaches of the Sununduk River in the Orenburg Urals. Alluvial gold deposits are located on the left slope of the Suduk River from the Bezymyanka River to the Baytuk River. The deposit has been worked out from the surface, deep, flooded gold-bearing layers have been preserved. Since 2003 gold mining began from the Berezitovy Uval and Mechetny spoon placers in the Yasnensky district in the Orenburg region.
The sources of alluvial gold are the products of chemical weathering of primary ores, including those with relatively low metal content, as well as the collapsing upper parts of gold deposits. The mechanism of gold concentration consists in the erosion of loose gold-bearing formations of weathering crusts by surface watercourses, accompanied by gravitational differentiation and the transfer of eroded material.
The basis of the raw material base of alluvial gold mining the Krasnooktyabrskoye, Sosvinskoye, Vagranskoye, Chakinskoye, Kamenskoye, Serebryanskoye, Nevyanskoye (Sverdlovsk region), Velsovskoye, Ulsovskoye, Promyslovskoye (Perm region), Miassskoye, Kochkarskoye, Bredinskoye and Gumbeyskoye (Chelyabinsk region) deposits.
The base of explored reserves of alluvial deposits are:
a) re-evaluated previously mined placers of the Middle and Southern Urals along the rivers Salda, Neiva, Pyshma, Miass, etc.;
The predominant genetic type of placers in the Urals is alluvial, less common are spoon placers (alluvial-deluvial or deluvial-proluvial). Alluvial placers were formed with a significant transfer of clastic material and gold. These are deposits of river valleys with their terraced, valley and channel morphological types. In the alluvium, the pebble material and gold are well rounded, the composition of the pebbles is varied, and the sediments are clearly layered. In deluvial placers, detrital material was transported not far from the primary source; therefore, the roundness of grains of gold and pebble material is much weaker than in alluvium. Such placers are formed on the slopes of mountains. Proluvial placers are located at the foot of the mountains when their slopes are washed away by temporary flows of clastic material. The detrital material of the proluvium is weakly rounded and poorly sorted. Gold-bearing placers consist mainly of coarse-grained material - pebbles and boulders, cemented by clay-sand mass. In quantitative terms, light minerals sharply predominate, primarily quartz, which is the most stable in the processes of physical and chemical weathering. Significant content of clay minerals.
The sizes of gold-bearing placers are different: in most cases, their length ranges from several hundred meters to 1–3, less often up to 5 km, and only a few of them can be traced with interruptions for tens and even hundreds of kilometers (the rivers Sosva, Tagil, Neiva, Miass). Placers are usually 20–60 m wide, rarely 100–300 m or more. The depth of occurrence of gold-bearing seams is varied: 1–3 m (“podderniki” or “verkhoviki”), most often up to 10 m, in some cases up to 40–60 m. Gold is unevenly distributed in them. As a rule, it is contained in the amount of the first hundreds of milligrams per 1 m3 of sand and is maximally concentrated in well-sorted sandy-pebble sediments, where its content can reach several grams per 1 m3 of rock. The size of gold particles in placers varies from less than 0.1 mm to nuggets. It is calculated that the average size of the metal in the Middle Urals is 0.60 mm, with fluctuations in individual placers from 0.23 to 1.00 mm. In the placers of the Southern Urals, it increases to 0.86 mm (from 0.45 to 2.00 mm), and in the Northern Urals, to 1.11 mm (from 0.35 to 3.85 mm). The average sample in explored deposits was calculated, which varies in the range of 780–960. For individual parts of the region, it is: the Southern Urals - 948, the Middle Urals - 900, the Northern Urals - 910, the Subpolar Urals - 891.
EXAMPLES OF PLACERS IN THE URALS.
1) GOLD OF THE BOLSHESHALDINSKY PLACER.
In 1824, mining began in the valley R. Big Shaldinka. The outbreak of exploration led to the discovery of numerous placers in the area of the village, which received the name Gold mines(now pos. fishery Gornozavodsky district). The first studies of the patterns of placer gold content in the Gornozavodsk region were carried out A.A. Krasnopolsky in 1889. He revealed that the source of detrital gold is numerous small quartz veinlets penetrating metamorphic schists. The described placer is interesting in that, along with golden sand, it contained gold pieces of ore appearance and nuggets, which allowed the well-known specialist N.V. Petrovskaya(1973) to draw a conclusion about the proximity of primary sources and the destruction of the upper rich parts of ore bodies. Loose deposits have a different nature. Eluvial-deluvial loams with crushed stone and blocks of underlying rocks lie directly on the bedrock. The color of these deposits varies depending on the color of the underlying rocks. Rare weakly rounded fragments of introduced rocks were also noted. On these sediments, and sometimes on the bedrock, lies the “river” or mature, well-sorted alluvium called by the prospectors. It is the main productive layer. Higher up, it gives way to immature alluvium, which is represented by less sorted material enriched in clay, sometimes black (marsh) due to plant detritus. Lenses and interlayers of black (floodplain) clay, as well as proluvial deposits confined to erosion of both deluvial and alluvial sediments, are locally recorded. Almost all deposits are gold-bearing, except for floodplains.
The placer contains minerals that can be attributed to the following associations. Minerals originating from metamorphic rocks predominate: magnetite, ilmenite, rutile, titanite, anatase, brookite, monazite and pyrite. Gold is represented by crystals, dendritic formations, irregular grains of varying degrees of roundness, which indicates its entry into the placer over a long period of time. (photo4)
In general, gold is of high quality and contains only an admixture of silver, which is also typical for other manifestations of the Northern Urals.
This placer is currently being exploited. Staratel LLC.
2) GOLD OF THE MOSS PLACER. (Nepryakhinskoye deposit, Southern Urals)
The Nepryakhinskoye gold deposit, 10 km north of the Chebarkul station in the Chelyabinsk region, combines a group of gold-bearing quartz and sulfide-quartz veins and mineralized zones accompanied by placers. The deposit has been known since the beginning of the 19th century and was repeatedly developed until 1960. Among the primary minerals of the ores, quartz, carbonate, pyrite, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite, and galena are indicated in different veins. The formation of gold placers is associated with the erosion of the weathering crust and oxidation zones of deposits reaching a depth of 50–60 m.
In the oxidation zone, the content of gold is 1–10 g/t, silver, from 0.2 to 10–13 g/t, and in some samples up to 50–100 g/t. Eluvial placer "Moss swamp" is located 700-800 m south-east of the village. Nepryakhino (Fig. 1). Until 1917, 250 kg of gold were mined from the placer at an average grade of 2.3 g/m3. Later work was carried out in 1939–40. and were curtailed due to the strong watering of the site and the lack of electricity. In 2000, exploration and pilot production of placer gold was carried out by Ingul LLC, Chebarkul. In the western part of the swamp with traces of old work, exploratory wells 5–7 m deep were drilled and a small hydraulics quarry (200 x 150 m) was laid. A placer 200–250 m wide has been traced in the SSE for 700 m. In undisturbed areas, a layer of peat (0.5–0.7 m) overlies clay weathering crust 2–3 m thick. 
Rice. Fig. 1. Geological scheme of the placer area "Moss swamp"
1
– sericite-chlorite schists, quartz-
sericite, graphite-quartz;
2
– chlorite, quartz-chlorite schists;
3
– serpentinites;
4
– talc-carbonate rocks;
5
– talc shales;
6
– gold veins and zones;
7 - gold placer "Moss swamp"
8 - contour of the swamp;
9 - area with. Nepryakhino
According to the results of the work, it was noted that there was a complete absence of rounded gold; gold was often found in intergrowths with veined quartz. For the most part "gray" concentrates were dominated by quartz or fragments of raft rocks (up to 60–92% of the volume); in "black" concentrates, the content of the heavy fraction is more than 50%. "Gray" slimes, except for quartz, most often contain feldspars. Gold concentrates are characterized by the predominance of coarse gold (average, % by weight): about 30% - nuggets (more than 4 mm); 51.5% - gold fraction -4 + 1 mm; 10% - gold fraction -1 + 0.5 mm; 8.6% is fine gold of the -0.5 mm fraction, where only 0.2% is accounted for by the -0.25 mm fraction.
The largest nugget weighing 94 g was characterized by a length of about 7 cm and a barrel-shaped shape with protrusions. (see photo5).
A typical concentrate of schlich gold from a hydraulic cut typically includes 3 small nuggets (5–12 mm), 80 gold pieces (2–4 mm) and about 400 small grains. Gold nuggets of bright yellow color have a complex shape with a tuberculate-pitted surface and voids from the dissolution of host minerals, ingrowths of translucent quartz and sometimes pyrite. There are nuggets that are similar in shape to crystals with smoothed tops and edges.
The nuggets are practically not rounded and represent aggregates of grains from former sulfide-carbonate-quartz veins. Zolotines of fractions +1 mm and –1+0.5 mm are characterized by various shapes, usually flattened and weakly rounded. Among gold particles and smaller grains of gold, the share of lighter (yellow) gold is about 5% of the volume.
Pieces of vein gold-quartz aggregates are aggregates of gold grains 0.1–2 mm in size with ingrowths of whitish and colorless fine-grained quartz (0.5–3 mm). Gold grains are bright yellow, complex shape.
The gold of the eluvial placer "Moss swamp" is concentrated during the formation of the weathering crust during the destruction of low-sulfide gold-carbonate-quartz veins; this is indicated by the predominance of coarse gold and nuggets with quartz ingrowths and pyrite inclusions. The predominant host rocks are metasomatic shales with a small amount of fine gold.
METHODS OF INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF PLACERS AND LOSS OF GOLD.
The technology used by the miners is traditional and has not changed much since the time of Odysseus (see photo above). The only difference is the use of bulldozers, water monitors, and the use of metal mesh and textured rubber mats instead of sheepskin (golden fleece).
Mining at the described placers is carried out with the help of industrial devices. Prompribor is a simple installation for extracting gold. It is often made from an old body from a KRAZ dump truck, covered with a screen (an iron sheet with 80 mm holes) on top. And on the sides, steel sheets are installed so that the gold does not scatter around. A long iron box (gateway), 5-10 meters long, is attached to the bottom of the "body", the bottom of which is lined with metal nets and special rubber mats. The rock is fed to the screen by a bulldozer, then it is washed away with a jet of water from a hydraulic monitor. Everything that passes through the openings of the screen gets to the lock, the rest of the rock - galya, is washed into the dump, it also contains nuggets. With a roar, the rock, along with water, passes through the lock, leaving gold particles on a rubber mat. The breed that has passed through the gateway is called - ephel. They often also contain buoyant fine, thin plate-like gold or gold intergrowths with quartz and clay.
It turns out that the ephel of industrial devices ( ephel - washed rock from which gold is extracted) may also contain coarse gold and nuggets. Their losses are associated with gold-quartz aggregates and clay pellets. The fact is that with a significant amount of quartz, the specific gravity of a nugget, and even more so of gold, decreases. For this reason, gold with quartz goes into ephel.
For example, it is quite possible that 10 g of gold are placed as a vein in a quartz pebble 5 cm in size. The mass of such a pebble without gold would be about 150 g. Adding 10 g of gold to this mass gives an increase in mass of less than 10%. Obviously, during enrichment at the lock, such a gold-quartz aggregate will easily roll down and be washed away through the lock. By analogy, with poor disintegration of rock sands, with a significant content of clay and loam in it, gold particles in clay aggregates are washed off from locks more often into a pebble and less often into an ephel dump. When shooting gold from locks, large material, including quartz pebbles, is usually thrown into tailings. At the same time, it is unlikely that every quartz pebble is carefully examined by tenants. How much gold hidden in quartz, because of this, goes into the dump is unknown. In the recent past, outdated technology was used that practically did not capture gold with a class of less than 0.5 mm and nuggets larger than 80 mm: according to the Russian Academy of Sciences, when using traditional ways placer metal mining, gold was recovered with losses from 15% to 40% of the total production, and gold with a class of less than 0.25 mm was not recovered at all. It is clear that it is impossible to extract all the metal, but, according to preliminary estimates, only technogenic deposits in Russia can produce 5-7 tons of gold annually with minimal operating costs, and the organization of small enterprises.
Equipment for small-scale gold mining.
One of the possible ways is the method of working, with gold mining in small objects using stand-alone mini equipment. In places where there are no volumetric sand reserves for large artels, one can always find small enriched areas for selective processing.
There are more than enough small but enriched areas containing tens and hundreds of kg of gold in our rivers and placers. They are not of interest for large-scale mining, but for 1-2 people at minimal cost they can provide a satisfactory income. Here we can recall the domestic experience - the extraction of kos gold by small teams was carried out in the Zeya district of the Amur region on a large scale before the revolution and in the 30s. On the Zeya River in 1914, 819 kg were mined along the shallows and spits of the rivers, in total, more than a ton of kos gold per year was mined in the Zeya region on trays. The method of "golden" seasonal, civilian work at the mines was widely practiced in Eastern Siberia and the Far East by the owners of licensed areas. In 1913 this method was mined at the mines, which amounted to 30% of the total gold production of 1601 pounds. No one knows how much was washed up by "predators". ( "Predators" - the name of private prospectors who washed gold in new areas they discovered, using improvised means, without detailed exploration of placers and organization of work, arose in the Far East.)
The development of small areas can be organized using modern technologies and equipment;
Minidrag - fully autonomous installations for sand supply, washing and gold recovery. They are mounted on a pontoon, on which an engine, a pump, a pulp hydroelevator, a flushing sluice with mats are installed. Minidredges have a capacity of 1.5 m3 of sand per hour, their weight is from 60 kg. Productivity is usually limited by the power of the pump for sucking sand into the receiving hopper. They carry out selective washing of sands, a sand fraction of less than 5 cm enters the pump inlet pipe. They are used on channel and oblique placers or heavily watered areas.
mini gateways– devices for washing and gravitational extraction of gold. On a collapsible frame, mounted; - hydraulic screen disintegrator, receiving hopper, flushing sluice. The bottom of the airlock is laid out with fleecy rugs and metal stencils. The tilt angle is adjustable up to 12 degrees. An engine-driven water pump delivers water from a source with a range of up to 20 m using flexible hoses. Gasoline consumption from 0.8 l / hour. Minilocks have a capacity of about 1.5 m3 of sand per hour, weight from 25 kg. They carry out washing of sands, with a particle size of pebble inclusions up to 100 mm. They are used in dry areas near the water (no further than 20m). Productivity is usually limited by the manual supply of sands to the receiving hopper. Cost from 2 thousand dollars.
- an electronic device designed specifically for artisanal gold mining to search for native gold. Nuggets began to search with the help of metal detectors in Australia. From there, the very "Electronic Gold Rush" went in 82, when the largest nugget "Hand of Fate" weighing 27 kg was found with the help of a metal detector.
able to selectively detect gold particles in mineralized gold sands. The metal detector is able to detect the smallest gold nugget measuring approximately 5x4x2 mm, provided that it is located up to 20 cm from the surface. The metal detector determines the place where the nugget is located by an audible and visual signal. Instruments have the ability to ignore signals from soil minerals and other metals. In cases where technogenic metals are not found in the rocks, the device perfectly detects nuggets weighing from 100 mg. Nuggets weighing from 100 mg to 1 gr. are found at a depth of up to 10 cm, weighing more than 1 g. - at a depth of up to 30 cm. The limit of detection in the soil is gold particles weighing 100 mg.
Sites for small-scale gold mining with a metal detector.
To select an area and a search site, you need to find out whether nuggets weighing more than 50-100 grams have ever been found in this area. If no one found nuggets larger than 50 g in this area, then you should not search for them. Most likely, they simply do not exist in the area you have chosen. Information about nuggets is most easily obtained from geologists who have been working in your area for a long time or from old-timers. It is useful to talk with local geologists, visit the library of the territorial geological fund, look at reports on geological exploration and sieve analyzes of gold. If you have access to geological information, you can make a more reliable forecast and more accurately select a place to search for nuggets.
If as a result you find out where nuggets weighing more than 50-100 g were found in the designated area, then this is already good, useful information. So, you also have a chance to find nuggets. Usually, nugget placers form nodes that include several placer deposits. The presence of large nuggets indicates that the place is "nugget". So here, most likely, there are several placers with large gold. As a rule, they are worked out, but all the nuggets were not extracted during mining. Part of the nuggets remained, since the quality of mining of placers was low.
(The median fineness is the size of the sieve through which 50% of the mass of gold is sieved).
Once you know that the gold is large and there are nuggets, you must decide exactly where you will look. There are several job options:
Search in technogenic placers
the occupation is calm, relatively reliable, you can definitely find gold here, but large production is unlikely here. If you're lucky, you can find a nugget weighing several hundred grams, but very large nuggets are rare.
Search in new areas - whole placers
and in the root
more risky. There is no guarantee here, be sure to find a nugget. But on the other hand, here you can find a "nugget nest", in which several kilograms, or maybe tens of kilograms of gold are concentrated. In addition, there are a lot of objects to search. There are countless small unexplored streams in the gold-bearing regions. The search for nuggets in a bedrock outcrop may be of interest only in rare cases when there is reliable information about the location of the vein and the large gold contained in the ore.
Search for gold nuggets in technogenic placers.
In the surface layer (up to 20 cm), which can be examined with a simple and relatively cheap metal detector, there are more nuggets than on the open surface, and even more in a layer 50 cm thick. The best modern metal detectors provide a detection depth of very large nuggets up to 0.5 m. In technogenic placers, development areas located closer to the upper reaches of the rivers are most preferable. This is due to the fact that nuggets are poorly carried by streams and remain closer to the headwaters of a stream or river. For example, the best nuggets of the river are located in its upper reaches (no more than 2-2.5 km from the sources). The lower part of the river (for 3-5 km from the mouth) is characterized by relatively fine metal. You can search for nuggets here, but they will most likely be only in certain places. These are places where nuggets were brought in from the sides of the valley, at the expense of local primary sources, or from small tributaries. Finding such places is quite difficult. Therefore, the easiest thing, at first, is to abandon large valleys and look for nuggets in placers located no more than 2 km from the sources.
From such placers, it is better to choose objects with a high linear margin, that is, the richer the site, the better. It is also possible to find nuggets on "poor" placers, but they are likely to be less than on "rich" ones.
When analyzing possible objects of work, it is necessary to take into account the availability of the raft for inspection. Nuggets are almost always confined to the lower part of the reservoir and bedrock depressions. Bedrock remains on the surface after the placer has been mined. Such places where bedrocks come to the surface for searching for nuggets are the most favorable. It is best to look for nuggets immediately after the industrial excavation of sands. The raft at this time is most fully opened. In it, nuggets can almost always remain in the recesses and cracks of the raft. Search efficiency will be maximum here. The strength of the raft, the presence of powerful earth-moving equipment at the enterprise, and years of working out play a role. Even after clearing the landfill with heavy equipment, the depressions remain untouched. A soft raft, if the enterprise has powerful bulldozers, can be worked out so deeply that no nuggets are left on it. A durable raft is more promising for work. Not everyone has a powerful bulldozer and not everyone is ready to "tear" it on strong bedrock. Therefore, it is more likely to find raft depressions with gold nuggets on solid indigenous ones.
Considering a combination of different conditions, you will find a place worth going to. It is characterized by a high size of previously mined gold, located in the upper part of the valley, after mining at the landfills, an open raft remained. The pad is durable. The placer was worked out a long time ago, when there were still few powerful bulldozers, and they looked at the loss of gold through their fingers. If you have such an object, then the nuggets are in your pocket. However, such ideal objects are rare. On many placers, they managed to carry out reclamation - the raft was filled up. Often the waste landfill is littered with wash tailings. Then there is no guarantee that the nuggets will definitely be found.
If the placer raft is closed, then the search for nuggets can be carried out along the dumps of washed sands. There may also be nuggets here. On placers with large gold, nuggets get into galley, especially often when using scrubbers and drag barrels with a perforation of less than 20-30 mm. According to geologists, at some of the Ural mines out of 200 nuggets, for which there are passports indicating their location, 80 nuggets (40%) were raised in pebble dumps of workings of separate mining in the 1950s. This indicates that the testing of pebble dumps using metal detectors can be quite effective.
Nuggets in quartz are quite common. According to some data, the vast majority of gold nuggets from placers are aggregates of gold with quartz. The presence of gold-quartz aggregates is noted in almost any report on detailed exploration of deposits. For some placers, the share of such gold reaches 10-20%. However, in fact it may be more. Exploration underestimates the share of gold with quartz, as it uses gravitational enrichment devices, on which it is only partially captured. However, the search in technogenic dumps is much more difficult than in the rafts of waste landfills. There is a lot of metal garbage in the dumps that interferes with work. The best in terms of cleanliness are dredging dumps of placers worked out once.
In dredging dumps one can find mostly large nuggets (tens and hundreds of grams). However, such nuggets are rare, so you can’t hope for success right away. It may take some patient work before the first nugget is found. According to experience, in dredging dumps, one nugget accounts for an average of 600-1000 cubic meters of rock. When working with a metal detector, you can listen to 50 cubic meters in an hour. Therefore, a good nugget can be found in a day's work.
Search on whole placers and in root.
Near streams there are generally three types of rich placers that are not explored, they are not licensed, they are not of interest to existing mines and prospecting artels. it brush, channel and oblique placers. They are characterized by an uneven, nested distribution of gold, with reserves of tens and hundreds of grams of gold. These placers are a desirable object of extraction for lone prospectors and small teams. Brush and channel placers are typical for mountainous regions, especially for the upper reaches of streams near watersheds. Kosovye placers can be found in the mountains and on flat rivers, often very far from gold-bearing areas.
To brushed include placers with metal concentrations in cracks in bedrock, in places where watercourses cut into bedrock. They are found on drops, waterfalls, in the zone of the leading edge of the incision, where the erosive activity of rivers slows down for one reason or another. Very promising are bedrock transverse ridges, which can be composed of dikes and quartz veins.
To channel placers the productive alluvium of the channel, not covered by empty sand and pebble deposits, should be attributed. They are characterized by the accumulation of gold in the raft (bedrock) and their partial dispersion in the supra-raft rocks. Characterized by small nests, lenses, jets, fast wedging ribbons, etc. Channel placers are usually located next to brush placers in those parts of the valleys where the channel incision occurs. (CHANNEL PLACERS - placers that occur in the riverbed and are in the area of water flow; they occur at the initial stage of formation or the stage of transformation of a valley placer. R.r. are characteristic of young valleys in the incision stage and are formed by direct erosion of a primary source or due to previously formed valley and terrace placers; can be restored after mining. Gold, platinum, diamonds, etc. are of industrial importance.)
To oblique placers include gold-bearing deposits of near-channel shallows. They contain gold of small and medium fractions. In the valleys of mountain streams, oblique placers are usually composed of coarse clastic material, in the foothills of those rivers where the speed of streams drops - gravel-sand sediments, and in the valleys of lowland rivers they are always represented by sands with an admixture of clay or silty material.
Kosovye placers sometimes occur tens of kilometers from primary sources. In many river systems, streak placers are cut off from other floodplain alluvial placers. But often those and others are spatially combined. In them, an uneven distribution of metal is observed, both in the lateral and vertical directions. The oblique placers of gold are usually characterized by low concentrations of the metal, represented mainly by its fine fractions. Within the river spits and shallows, it is necessary to look for enriched areas in the form of lenses, which can be in places where the channel bends, behind boulders, fallen trees, and similar obstacles. .(SPIT PLACES - alluvial placers of long-range transport and redeposition, occurring on sandy-pebble, sandy near-channel shallows (“spits”) and alluvial islands, containing fine particles of useful minerals that are most mobile in the alluvial environment. They are represented by thin (several centimeters or millimeters ) layers and lenses enriched useful m-lams, alternating with layers of “empty” deposits. The thickness of the productive layer localized in the upper horizons of the channel alluvium rarely exceeds1m, often a few decimetres. Easily processed by water flow and can be displaced downstream during floods; able to recover after work. Useful components of spit placers are gold (native), diamond, platinum (native). The industrial value is not great, but they serve as a reliable sign of the presence in the valleys of other types of placers and their primary sources)
We start with a stream.
In gold-bearing regions, a good place to look for nuggets is small mountain streams. Gold falls into them from the slopes. Light rock is carried out by water, and gold, due to its high density, sinks through sand and pebbles, accumulates and forms gold placers. It is better to choose streams for examination of small lengths, up to 10-15 kilometers. It can also be the upper reaches of larger rivers. The nuggets are inactive and are not transported by the river for long distances. Usually, the farther from the source, the finer the gold. Small streams are especially interesting in that you can find rich small areas in them - “nests”. In the nests there are not only nuggets, but also gold dust. From history, nests with several pounds of gold are known. To search for small gold nuggets in streams, you need to use metal detectors at maximum sensitivity. The appearance of a nugget carries useful information, so it is advisable to measure each nugget, photograph and accurately describe the place of the find. This may come in handy later on when looking for a nest or root vein.
Under the sand and pebbles in any stream lie strong (bedrock) rocks. Geologists often call them "raft". Gold, sinking through loose rocks, reaches the raft. It cannot go down further and accumulates here. The nuggets on the raft are the largest. There is also gold above the raft, but the higher, the finer. Nuggets are rare at 1.5-2 meters from the raft. Nuggets are not found on the open surface.
When looking for nuggets with a metal detector, the problem is that the raft is usually located at a depth of 2-5, and sometimes even 50 m. You can’t get nuggets at such a depth with any device. You have to choose places where the raft comes close to the surface. Such places along the banks of mountain rivers are found quite often in the form of outcroppings of bedrock. Their surface was once the bottom of a stream. Later, the stream washed out another new channel, and the old bottom remained on the surface. Promising places in the form of rock outcrops are the easiest to visually find, but not all streams have them. If there are no visible outcrops, you need to explore the floodplain of the stream, in the hope of good luck. If the surface of the rock is cracked, if there is gold left in them. The metal detector will find it. The entire surface of the rocks and the areas adjacent to the rocks must be scanned very carefully with the device.
It is also advisable to examine the accessible surface next to the channel, 10-20 meters above the water. These may be preserved sections of ancient river valleys (terraces), and their surface could once have been the bottom. It is interesting to explore the underwater part of the channel, there may also be nuggets. You can search with a metal detector underwater, however, it is very difficult to pull a nugget out of the water.
The companion of gold is quartz.
You can pre-evaluate the stream for gold by additional features. If there are quartz pebbles in the stream, then the stream is more promising for the presence of gold. The presence of quartz in the stream is a good sign. The fact is that gold comes from a primary source - a quartz vein. The quartz is destroyed, the gold is released from it and washed down the slope into the stream. Quartz also enters the stream and is easy to see. Quartz is a white or light gray rock. With a little experience, it is easy to see. The main difference between quartz and other rocks is that it has a high hardness and scratches glass. You can take any fragment of the bottle and run a piece of rock over it. If there is a scratch, then the chip is quartz.
A more accurate criterion for selecting promising streams is rock washing with a flume or sludge sampling. Sand washing should be carried out 200-500 m above the mouth. If at least one piece of gold (sign) got into the tray - a good sign. It is likely that there may be nuggets in the stream. But if there is no gold in the tray, then the stream cannot be considered unpromising. The tray “catches” fine gold, and in the nugget place of the stream, the content of fine gold is small, up to 1 g per 1 m3, and it may not get into the tray sample. In nugget places, you can wash 10 trays and all without gold. But if gold got into the tray, then the stream must be examined first of all and very carefully.
CONCLUSION.
Nowadays, small-scale gold mining is becoming more and more widespread. Those who wish to mine gold enter into an agreement with the owner of the license and work on its site, on man-made dumps. The work is carried out by small teams, in other cases by lone prospectors, sometimes by families.
The development of small-scale gold mining is artificially constrained by legal restrictions: individuals are allowed to mine gold only within the limits of existing mining allotments and only from man-made deposits.
Man-made dumps have a number of advantages - they require less organization and re-development costs, and also impose lower initial requirements for the technical training of personnel.
The studies carried out by specialists give grounds to assume that the predicted gold resources in dumps on the territory of the Oymyakonsky ulus of Yakutia alone amount to more than 70 tons. At some deposits during mining, the number of nuggets exceeded twice their number during exploration, which gives reason to assume their significant presence in pebble dumps. A preliminary analysis of the documentation of 400 deposits in the Indigirka River basin with a total gold production of more than 450 tons showed the prospect of recycling 130 deposits, which produced more than 360 tons.
The prospect of searching on old dumps has the following advantages
:
– significantly reduced capital and operational costs for the extraction of metal;
– no overburden work is required;
- the location of the plots is reliably known;
– the possibility of using mobile and inexpensive mini-equipment;
– lower requirements for the technical training of personnel;
– relatively developed infrastructure and road network in the work areas;
– the cost of performing appraisal work is significantly lower than standard exploration methods.
The decisive factors that provide a long-term prospect for the search for nuggets are huge reserves of hale-ephel dumps, relatively low investments at the initial stage, high profitability during mining, and wide opportunities for investing in new technologies for gold mining.
Gold mining is a global business operating on every continent except Antarctica. And gold mining in Bashkiria occupies a significant part in this area.
Long before any gold is obtained, a thorough survey of the area and appropriate measurements will be required. In order to determine the size of the deposit as accurately as possible, as well as to extract and process gold ore efficiently and safely.
It will take 10-20 years on average before a mine is ready to produce the material.
Huge volumes of precious rocks are mined every year in the regions of the Urals. They account for about 15 percent of total production. It is one of the richest sources of precious metals. And gold as well.
This is due to the following:
Currently, gold mining is carried out throughout the Urals.
The beginning of the official operation of gold mines is considered to be 1745. However, many people have previously discovered Ural gold nuggets and sold them.
So, briefly about where and how they look for gold in the Urals.
Although, as noted earlier, gold mining is currently carried out everywhere, Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk stand out against the background of all places. They are famous for their rich sources of precious metals, which have not been exhausted so far.
Every year, 20-50 tons of gold are received on the Ural side. Mining is done in several ways:
As a rule, in most cases the ore method is used. It is the most convenient and actively used throughout the Russian territory.
The mine with large gold reserves, which was discovered first, was precisely in the Urals. And it was called "Berezovsky". It happened in 1747 near the river waters of Berezovka, which flows near Yekaterinburg. A little 9-year-old girl discovered gold pieces while playing in the sand. And so it became known about one of the largest deposits.
This 300-year-old mine still exists today. Its area has been fully explored by gold miners, although it has a length of tens of kilometers.
Many experts argue that the Urals gold reserves are far from exhausted. According to research, gold mining in the Urals will continue to exist for about a century. At the same time, the predicted amount of gold produced is at least 20 tons annually.
In addition, hard-to-reach places are now being actively explored, where miners have never set foot before. In many of them, gold and other precious rocks are found.
At the level of Russia, Bashkiria is one of the largest gold producers. So, in 2015, about 7.5 tons of precious metals were mined in the Bashkir territory, among which gold was not the last.
On the territory of Bashkortostan, there are four main regions where gold has been mined for a long time. All deposits have differences in the nature and composition of the metal mined there:
And throughout the east of the South Ural slope, gold-quartz compositions are dispersed. Some of them are also present in the areas of the Upper Avzyan.
Most of the Trans-Ural deposits with pyrite ore are high-quality sources of both gold and copper.
The large concentration of precious deposits in Bashkiria is due to the number of oxidation zones in the deposits. Currently, geological work and the search for new gold deposits are being actively carried out in Bashkortostan. A number of potential rich sources have already been found.
Recently, private gold mining in places of abandoned mines has been legalized here. Absolutely anyone can come here with a metal detector and start looking. True, the probability of finding something is small. Since these places have been bypassed by professionals for a long time.
Many deposits can be found near river waters. With sufficient awareness, it is possible to find a placer even in shallow water.
In Bashkiria, there are many rivers in which there is gold.
Rivers play a significant role in the gold mining industry of Bashkiria.
Before proceeding with the extraction itself, experts examine the components of the bottom, since gold is not found in every river section.
The presence of metal also depends on the nature of the soil. Hydrologists deal with this issue. Often, placer gold can be found in the beds of dried up rivers. In the form of sediment.
Some of the deposits of former river flows may also contain gold. The richest deposits in this regard:
Before starting to look for gold, miners study all sorts of data. Like such as the causes of the appearance of metal in the soil and the nature of its movements.
Due to the fact that metal is several times heavier than water, it is easy to calculate its movements. The stronger the water flow, the higher the probability of displacement of resources. Distance and direction are calculated in the same way.
However, gold rarely travels far. Is that just a gold placer. Nuggets, especially large ones, simply crawl along the bottom surface in the direction of the current. Due to the weight of the nugget and the law of attraction, the speed of movement is minimal.
In the vast majority of situations, the placer occurs either at the end of the bend of the river channel, or at the beginning. There is also a high probability of finding gold in the inner river bend.
A placer deposit is a concentration of natural gold accumulated in sediments. For example, in riverbeds and streams.
Gold produced by weathering or other processes is likely to accumulate in alluvial deposits due to its light weight and corrosion resistance. In addition, its characteristic yellow color makes it easily and quickly recognizable even in very small quantities.
For this type of gold mining, special mining trays and sieves are often used. They are a container made of sheet iron with sloping sides and a flat bottom, which is used for washing gold-bearing soil or other material containing heavy minerals. Alluvium is carefully screened for valuable materials.
The material washing process is the simplest and most commonly used. This is a less expensive method of separating gold from silt, sand, and other stream deposits.
It's tedious work. And only with practice a person becomes a professional in his activity.
Groundwater may also contain subsurface deposits. As groundwater passes through the deposit, a small amount of gold is washed out of the rocks. Sometimes it can be found in parts of groundwater drawn from wells.
Over the past few centuries, Bashkiria has been carefully explored by enthusiasts. They were looking for precious metals in both the most famous areas and the little-known ones. The results of their activities have never been fully documented.
But incomplete data suggests that only a few people out of many thousands who searched one or another part of the deposits ever found valuable resources. Most of the "golden" areas were explored by industry pioneers, many of whom were quite experienced in their field. Therefore, gold ore is rare there.
However, the development of new, highly sensitive and relatively inexpensive gold prospecting methods has greatly expanded the possibility of finding deposits. Now the extraction of gold is real and in hard-to-reach places.
They can be quite large. And therefore suitable for the work of modern mining and metallurgical plants. Geologists and engineers who explore remote Bashkir regions systematically find small placers of gold.
The vast majority of the world's gold has been mined in the modern post-war era. It is not known for certain how many centuries gold mining was carried out in the Southern Urals. But we can definitely say that she showed herself at the end of the 18th century.
In the Uchalinsky district, even before the revolutionary times, a large gold ingot was somehow discovered, which weighed about 16 kg. And, after some period, they found another one - weighing 5 kg. He was given the name "Irndyk Bear" and placed in the local central museum. It is possible to visually study it and even touch it today.
At the end of May 1812, the monopoly on the extraction of this metal was abolished. And all the inhabitants of Russia were allowed to search for gold ores. With the condition of further payment to the treasury. Until the year 26 of the same century, precious metals were mined by miners.
In the Ural south, a chemical method of extracting gold was used. This happened in the year 86 of the 19th century, when a factory was built at one of the mines for the processing of epels with gold content. The chlorination method was used.
In the period from 1832 to 1917, more than 42 tons of gold were extracted from the subsoil located in Bashkiria. About 28 tons were mined in 1885-1917. According to scientists, this clearly shows the cyclical nature of the gold mining industry and its dependence on economic and political factors.
By the 20th century, the industry reached a new level. And it was precisely this that contributed to the formation of the socialist economy some time after the Civil War. And also improved the industry throughout the republic.
In the early Soviet years, Buribaevskoye, Sibayskoye, Vostochno-Kuznechnoye and other well-known deposits were discovered. And in the east of the Uchalinsky district they found Blagodatnoye, Yuzhno-Remezovskoye and Krasnookhtinskoye.
Despite the scale of the global gold mining industry, its socio-economic implications are not well understood. However, many reports present a number of indicators that indicate the significant contribution of the gold mining industry to socio-economic development.
In recent years, concerns have been raised about potential links between gold and illegal armed conflicts such as the Civil Wars. Although their share in Bashkiria is low, responsible mining is putting in place control processes to make sure that neither the companies nor the gold they produce contribute to conflict.
The conflict-free gold standard is an agreement developed by the World Gold Council. It is based on internationally recognized criteria and helps mining companies ensure that their gold is not subject to national and international controversy. The standard promotes due diligence of supply chains and reduces the likelihood of hazards.
Bashkir refiners and representatives of industry groups describe the Standard as an important step towards trust and transparency in the "golden" sphere.
Success in finding gold still goes to those who choose favorable areas. And only after a thorough study of the rocks and geology of the areas. Serious prospecting should not be undertaken by someone who does not have sufficient capital to support a long and possibly unsuccessful gold prospecting campaign.
In Russia, work on the discovery of deposits is carried out in many regions. And every year the number of successful campaigns increases. This makes it possible to increase the state gold reserves all the time. Ural is one of the leaders in this area. Most of the precious metals are mined here. And Bashkiria plays an important role in this.
From the materials of various researchers (Jessen, 1948) it follows that the first gold mining arose in the Southern Urals, apparently at the end of the second millennium BC. and finally froze in the 16-17 centuries AD, i.e. just 100-200 years before the emergence of the Russian gold industry. The available sources do not allow answering the question of whether it existed continuously for almost three millennia, or whether it arose and lasted only during certain historical periods.
We do not yet know direct traces of ancient gold mining on the territory of the Republic of Bashkortostan; information about finds related to this area has not received sufficient coverage in the literature. The little that can now be pointed out boils down to the following.
At the Sultanovsky mine on the river. Sultanka - the right tributary of the river. Bol. Kizil (Baimaksky district of the Republic of Belarus), miners discovered traces of ancient mining of gold-bearing quartz veins using stone tools. Pieces of crushed quartz were found here, and traces of gold scraping were found on exposed veins.
Academician Lepekhin, who traveled around the Urals in 1770, notes the "Chudskaya mine" 4 km from the Kananikolsky plant along the Kurtly river (Zilairsky district of the Republic of Belarus). He writes: “Our Peipus mine seemed to us a proof of the fact that the ancient inhabitants of the sowing country also hunted high metals.”
Another ancient "mine" was discovered by Lepekhin not far from the previous one. “... Before reaching Sakmara for 20 versts, at the Shirla River, they ran into a protruding crest of a mountain, and 5 versts from this place on a slope, which the Bashkirs could not name, there was an old mine, where copper signs in quartz and with gold were black."
In the wake of more ancient developments, Kiryabinsky was founded in 1749, and at the beginning of the 19th century, Voznesensky copper mines were founded in the Uchalinsky district.
The ancient works on alluvial gold can be judged indirectly, based on the following facts.
N.I. Kuraev (1937) indicates that during the pre-revolutionary development of placers along the river. Miass (Orlovo-Nadezhdinskoe and Vasilyevsky swamps) near the village. Ilchigulova (Uchalinsky district of the Republic of Belarus) found copper axes. Gold mining dates back to no later than 5-3 centuries BC. e., when later copper and bronze axes were used in the Urals.
At the aforementioned Sultanovsky mine, during the extraction of alluvial gold in the gold-bearing "sands", copper and bronze tools were found: an eye ax, a chisel and two pieces of an earthen vessel. These items date back to 1000 BC.
A copper or bronze dagger and a similar sickle were found at the Tanalyksky mine of the Goryaevs (Baimaksky district of the Republic of Belarus), which dates this find to the beginning of the last millennium BC.
On the territory of the Chelyabinsk and Orenburg regions adjacent to the Republic of Bashkortostan, there are also archaeological finds of this and later times. Based on the above information, one can presumably speak about the origin of ancient gold mining in the Southern Urals as early as the Copper-Bronze Age (finds at the John the Baptist and Sultanovsky mines, on the Yusha River) and its continuation in the 8th-12th centuries AD. (find near the city of Troitsk). Later, from century to century, there were rumors that there was gold in the bowels of the Stone Belt. However, the history of the mining Urals began only at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The discovery of industrial gold in the Urals was facilitated by many circumstances, including the decrees of Peter I, who took great care to discover gold in Russia and begin its development. In the very first years, when all the power was concentrated in his hands, Peter I began to stubbornly seek the search for gold ore. On September 1, 1697, an order was given to the Tobolsk voivode, Prince Cherkassky. Gold ore was named the first by order: “... there will be someone, according to what kind of investigation, according to whose knowledge, where he knows gold or silver and copper ores and mica, or he will find it in the future, they would inform about it ...”.
The call to search for gold in Russia is even more clearly formulated in the Petrovsky legalization of November 2, 1700: "to replenish gold and silver in his great sovereign Muscovy in Moscow and in the cities to look for gold and silver and copper and other ores ..." .
These and other state acts of Peter I and his successors on the development of the mining business led to the fact that gold was discovered almost simultaneously in the Urals, Altai, Karelia and Transbaikalia.
The Urals is the only region of Russia in the 18th century, in which, on the basis of the discovery of Erofei Markov in 1745, gold mining began to be created and successfully developed as an independent industry. At that time, only in the Urals there were special organizations that were in charge of gold mining, such as the Yekaterinburg gold mining expedition, Berezovsky, Pyshminsky and Uktussky gold mines.
For 70 years (1745-1814) ore was the only source of gold, and all gold mining in Russia during this period was concentrated in the Urals. The next most important circumstance confirming the superiority of the Urals as the birthplace of the gold industry is the discovery of Russian alluvial gold.
In 1814, the Ural foreman L.I. Brusnitsin for the first time in the modern history of Russia discovered alluvial gold in the Miass region and began its commercial production.
Brusnitsyn spent all his childhood with a tray in his hands, he was a skilled, experienced washer, and the accumulated experience was very useful to him. Having become a foreman (mining foreman) and having received the task of testing the dumps of the development of gold-quartz veins in order to assess the possibility of their reprocessing, he himself took up the washing of samples and at the same time violated the usual scheme: he did not take samples to the factory, but significantly reduced their weight and simplified processing , limited it to washing on a flume in a river flowing near dumps. And it became obvious that many small samples characterize the distribution of gold in the dump faster and more reliably than rare large samples. Wealthy plots were identified quickly and reliably. Brusnitsyn began to feed the factory with his own ore, increased metal production. All this earned the approval of the authorities, but it was a significant event only on the scale of the factory. Having completed the study of the dumps, Brusnitsyn still spent more time by the river than at the factory. Now he was washing samples on the tray not from ore dumps, but from what lay below - from river sand and pebble deposits. This went against the production instructions of that time, but soon it was not Brusnitsyn's strange actions that surprised him, but the fact that gold sparkled in his tray!
Thus, the first gold placer in the modern history of Russia (and in general in the northern countries) was discovered. Based on the initiative of Brusnitsyn, a new direction of gold mining was created in a short time - the extraction of gold from the "sands". By 1823, gold-bearing placers were discovered in more than two hundred places, including Bashkiria, and placer gold mining was successfully developed in a vast area from Denezhkin Kamen in the north to the southern Ural steppes. The business started in the Urals was then picked up in Altai, in Western and Eastern Siberia, in the Far East.
The gold (and mining in general) industry and the prospecting business of Bashkiria, which is inextricably linked to it, have come a long way from handicraft work with their primitive equipment to modern technology, from small “master” and artisanal developments to large mining enterprises and artisanal artels. At the dawn of its formation, mining was carried out mainly from gold-bearing ores of the oxidation zone of gold-sulfide, copper pyrite and gold-quartz deposits.
The development of oxidized gold-bearing ores has been known since the middle of the 18th century. To provide the Preobrazhensky copper smelter (Zilair settlement) with ore, prospecting and exploration work was carried out in the Bashkir Trans-Urals. In 1749, the Tanalykskoye was discovered, in 1750 - the Uvarazhskoye gold-copper-pyrite deposits.
During the development of these deposits, and then the Northern Yuluk and Yulala, butars were used to extract free gold. The upper horizons of the deposits were developed, as a rule, to the level of groundwater. Destroyed outcrops of gold-bearing "iron hats" and quartz veins, represented by a clay mass with inclusions of ore and quartz material, were washed on butars and cradles, and the ore material and quartz were crushed in an ore mortar or thrown into a dump. The extraction of gold at the same time reached 30-35%.
With the discovery of alluvial deposits in the first third of the 19th century, the extraction of ore gold practically ceased, since its extraction from placers was more profitable and less laborious.
The first discoveries and the beginning of the development of gold placers in Bashkiria date back to the beginning of the 30s of the 19th century. At that time, rich placers were discovered in the Uchalinsky district near the village. Muldakaevo along the river. Miass. In 1835, placers were discovered along the Uy and Shartymka rivers. Since 1837, the Sultanovskaya placer has been known in the Baimaksky district. In subsequent years, in addition to the discovery of placers in the basins of the Miass, Ui, Ural and Tanalyk rivers, discoveries follow in the Zilair and Beloretsk (basins of the Belaya and Bol. Avzyan) regions. By the beginning of the 1900s, more than three hundred placers were already known, including all the largest ones.
Despite the use of inefficient and unproductive industrial devices in the development of placers, the work was carried out very intensively. As a rule, only rich areas were developed with an average content of "sands" not lower than 4-6 g/m 3 . In the Uchalinsky district in the 19th century, the average annual production was about 400 kg of gold, and in the period 1875-1885. she reached 800 kg. In other regions of Bashkiria, the scale of gold mining was much lower.
In the 1900s, the gold industry passed into the hands of joint-stock companies. In connection with the consolidation of capital, the technical equipment of the mines has improved and their productivity has increased. The level of gold mining reached its maximum by the end of the first - the beginning of the second decade. According to incomplete data for the pre-revolutionary period, 35 tons of alluvial gold was mined on the territory of the republic (Kuznetsov, 1936), moreover, over 70% of the production falls on the Uchalinsky district. Along with gold, prospecting, exploration and mining of copper, platinoids, chromites, manganese and iron ores, and jasper were carried out. In 1907-1918. a powerful impetus to the development of the mining industry and the search for new deposits was given by the formation of the Anglo-Russian Tanalyk-Baimak Company, later transformed into the South Ural Mining Joint-Stock Company (SUUGAO). In a short time, with the involvement of local ore miners, the company explored a vast territory in the south of Bashkiria and in adjacent parts of the Orenburg region, discovered and developed many deposits that are still of industrial importance (Sibayskoye, Bakr-Tau, Uvarazh, Tubinskoye, Semenovskoye, Yulaly, Bakr-Uzyak, Dergamysh, Kul-Yurt-Tau, etc.). A bright mark in the history of prospecting and mining in Bashkiria was left by the founder of SUGAO Leslie Urquhart, chief geologist of the company, member of the Kingsbury Mineralogical Society of London, director of SUGAO A.F. Kabanov.
The contribution of the pre-revolutionary industrialists Rameevs, Goryaevs, geologists N.K. Vysotsky, A.P. Karpinsky, N.P. Barbota de Marni, E.G. Goyer and others.
At the moment, gold is one of the most popular precious metals in the world and is in many ways an indicator of a stable economy of a state. Almost all the gold that is freely sold or in circulation is mined deep in the bowels of the earth. There are both small and large deposits where gold is mined. There is some dependence on where and how gold was mined and on the formation of its value. After all, some metal reserves are hidden deep underground and it is extremely difficult to extract them. It is important to note that the volume of the gold reserves of a country is also affected by the scrap that citizens own, whether it be a gold tooth or a chain.
Recent years for most developed countries have not been the most stable in terms of gold mining. If we analyze the economies of developed countries that have gold reserves, we can see both ups and downs, the explanation for which may be the global financial crisis and its peaks. Today, gold prices are relatively stable, which cannot but affect the craze for sales of precious metals.
For the first time, mankind began to find gold where ancient civilizations had already settled, for example, in northern Africa, India, Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean. Not so long ago, scientists tried to calculate how much gold people managed to get throughout history. The figure is truly enormous: over one hundred thousand tons.
The ancient world drew its gold from Egypt, which believed that its reserves were endless. Sudan kept up with Egyptian gold mining and also produced large volumes of pure gold. In third place, it is worth noting Africa, which, for certain reasons, transported all the mined gold to Egypt.
Places of gold mining in ancient Egypt.
If we talk about the Middle Ages, then gold mining was the lowest in the history of mankind.
After America was discovered, the world's gold reserves began to increase sharply, since this country has always been rich in its deposits. Central America came out on top in the world in terms of the stock of precious metals.
As you know, gold is an exhaustible resource. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the geography of gold deposits changes from year to year. And these changes are often quite radical.
For example, let's take the 80s, when the world's gold reserves were replenished by more than 940 tons. Most of all these reserves were mined in South Africa, namely 675 tons. And so it was for ten years. By the beginning of the 2000s, the main mining sites had moved to Latin America, while gold production in South Africa began to be mined 35% less.
Australia has always been full of gold deposits and has always tried not to yield to the “golden” powers in this, each time finding more and more new mines in its bowels.
Gold deposits can be found not only in the ground, but even in rivers. If you know where to look, you can find gold even in shallow water in the river.
There are many rivers in Russia where you can find gold placers. In order to proceed directly to the extraction of the precious metal, it is first necessary to study in detail the component of the bottom, because if there is gold, then not in all sections of the river. Hydrologists are best placed to tell if the soil is suitable for gold. Often it is they who point to the richest deposits.
Rivers tend to dry up, and often in their channel you can find a placer of gold in sediments of a sedimentary nature. Some deposits of former river flows may also contain gold, the most gold-bearing of them:
Terrace river deposits can be found on the shore, and bottom deposits, respectively, at the bottom of the river.
Before gold miners get down to business, they collect all the information they can, including where the gold resources could come from in the soil and how they move there. Metal is almost 20 times heavier than water, so its displacements are calculated quite simply. By and large, in order for the gold to move anywhere, a large movement of water is necessary. But even under such circumstances, even if the displacement occurs, then by an insignificant distance. Only gold placer can swim with water, but as for nuggets, they rather crawl along the bottom in the direction of the current. The force of gravity prevents the nuggets from falling into the water column. Any precious metal, including gold, moves at the lowest speed along the minimum trajectory. There are quite a few videos that capture and prove this.
But the question immediately arises, where is all the gold at the moment when the rivers change their position? And this happens quite often. Gold is not as easy to move as, for example, stones. Therefore, gold diggers know that it will change its place only if there is a flood period, and, consequently, the water pressure is strong enough to move the heavy metal. But there is one more clarification here. Floods, which are caused by heavy rainfall, are not as severe as those that occur once a year when the snow begins to melt.
In most cases, precious placer can be found either at the beginning of a bend in the riverbed, or at its end. But there is another section of the river, often full of gold deposits. This is her inner curve. Various photos clearly show this.
If we talk about Russia, as a country that annually produces large volumes of gold, then it is immediately worth noting the Urals, rich in precious rocks. This is explained by the following factors:
The official opening of the gold mines dates back to 1745. But long before that, people found gold nuggets here and actively sold them.
The question arises as to where to look for gold, placer or nuggets in the Urals. Nowadays, gold mining takes place throughout the Urals everywhere, but Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk are especially worth highlighting. It is there that the richest deposits are located, which have not been exhausted to this day. Annually, from 20 to 50 tons of gold is mined in the Urals.
Gold in the Urals is mined in several ways:
Since it is the ore method that is most often used, below about it in a little more detail.
The largest gold mining sites in the Urals.
By the way, the ore method is the most convenient not only in the Urals, but also in other deposits of Russia.
The very first mine in which a large amount of gold was discovered was found in the Urals and had a name - Berezovsky. Today, this gold mine has almost three hundred years of history. It has been explored up and down for several tens of kilometers. All this distance was covered by treasure hunters on foot.
At the moment, a museum of gold has been opened in Berezovsky.
Russian geologists allocate more than 15% of all gold reserves in the bowels to the Urals. In addition, many geological studies show that far from all reserves have been exhausted. They predict that for about a hundred years we will be able to mine gold in the Urals and, moreover, at least 20 tons a year.
Of course, now they are exploring much more inaccessible places than before, and where they find some kind of noble, precious breed, as a rule, they also find gold.
Bashkiria has always been famous for its rich deposits of precious metals.
In Bashkiria, there are four largest sites, where more volumes of not only gold, but also diamonds are mined every year. These deposits were even somehow put up for auction, but in the end it ended up that they remained at the disposal of Bashkiria.
At these sites, diamonds are found with a value of at least 0.2 carats. And the gold itself is hidden deep enough, approximately in the region of 100 meters underground.
At the moment, geological excavations and searches for new gold deposits are taking place in Bashkiria. Several potential sources have already been found that could be full of gold.
Last year, about 7.5 tons of precious metal, including gold, were mined in Bashkiria. In addition, about 220 kilograms of gold placers were found, which is an undoubted record compared to previous years.
The most famous gold deposits are found in the following regions of Bashkiria: Beloretsky; Baimaksky and Uchalinsky. In the latter, even before the revolution, a gigantic ingot of gold weighing 16 kg was found, which was presented to the king. It is worth noting that the king regarded this ingot as a sign from above, which marks the successful rule of the state. And after a while, another famous nugget weighing 5 kilograms was found. They called this nugget "Irndyk Bear". The nugget has been placed in the central museum of Bashkiria, where visitors can not only look at this amazing find, but even touch it.
In addition, in Bashkiria not so long ago they legalized private gold mining at old mines, which for one reason or another are abandoned. In places where amateur mining is allowed, you can absolutely safely look for gold with a metal detector or any other equipment, however, in Bashkiria, such places have long been “combed” by professional hunters for precious metals, so the chances of getting something are small.
Gold is being excavated every day around the world. Entire mines and mines are full of minerals that will help the economy of any country to reach a new level or stabilize its position. Detailed studies of the area where they plan to take place will always tell you where to look for gold.
In Russia, gold is mined in many regions. And year by year, gold production increases several times, which allows our country to maintain and increase its gold reserves. Private stocks of gold and precious stones and do reach unprecedented heights.
When asked where it is possible to mine such a metal as gold in Russia, the most correct answer would be - in the Urals. It is there that the largest part of gold is mined compared to other regions. In addition, as you understood from the article, there are enough other places where such a noble metal as gold is mined. As a rule, this is the Asian part of Russia.
