By Ben

Changes in Gold Mining since the Gold Rush

Gold Mining – 1850s

Alluvial MiningThe first type of gold discovered in Australia

was alluvial gold. Alluvial gold is small pieces or flecks of gold found in the dirt of river beds.

This discovery shaped gold mining technology in the early days of the Gold Rush, as the easiest way to recover this gold was using pans, cradles and sluice boxes.

Gold is heavier than dirt so it sinks to the bottom when in water. Dirt, mud and stones float in the water and are washed away!

Panning

Cradle

Sluice Box

Gold Mining – 2008

Open Pit MiningIn open pit mines, gold is mined on an

enormous scale, at lengthy distances underground. The Super Pit mine in Kalgoorlie, WA mines gold up to 300m below the mine’s surface level, and operates 24/7!

To do this, they drill deep holes and fill with explosives to blast open the surface below and expose the debris.

After a 12 hour safety buffer, trucks are then permitted onto the site to dig the blast by removing the debris to a processing plant to remove gold from the rock.

Then the site is cleaned up and the process starts again.

How has gold mining changed?

In the 1850s, gold mining technology was very simple. It did not allow the diggers to cover large areas at a time, and because it relied so much on physical labour, it was limited by physical problems experienced by the miners (like tiredness or injuries). It was ‘back breaking’ work for very little or no reward, as alluvial gold is so small.

Through advances in technology we can now use machinery to mine for larger masses of gold across more expansive areas and at extraordinary depths underground. Equipment, such as trucks, drills, explosives and processing plants, do amounts of physical labour that humans could not usually do in quicker amounts of time.