A Dopey Question

[diggemall]

OK, I'm no prospector, but the thought occurred to me:

Most Gravel Pits (NOT rock quarries) excavate alluvial deposits of sand & gravel.

Given the TONS of materials even small operators move through their sand & gravel screening & washing operations, AND the current prices for gold, has anyone ever considered / tried / heard of adding a sluice to the washers in your run-of-the-mill gravel pits ?

I couldn't turn anything up through a series of searches on the net.......

Just a random thought.................

Diggem'

 

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[Sandman]

I have only tried prospecting a few times when I visit my brother which is the prospector in AZ. Even a tiny amount of gold can be found at certain locations for the recreational miner that does this for fun and not profit.

 

[Elbandido]

Even the Beaches here have flour gold.
Extracting it is a challenge to say the least and require very much work.
More than most want to do.

 

[diggemall]

The answers so far sort of validates my point:

I would suspect there is SOME amount of gold to be extracted from almost any alluvial deposit.

The question is can a sluice be added to a commercial gravel or sand washer in such a way as to extract some percentage of any gold that might be "in the mix" almost as a "by-product" (albeit a profitable one) of the gravel washing operation ?


Diggem

 

[Jason in Enid]

I'm sure it could be. Most operations use trommels to seperate the material by sizes. It probably wouldn't take much of a change to add a long tom sluice to the sand output, although it would probably require additional water and the wet output sands could slowdown thier overall operations.

I have personally panned flakes from "playground sand" purchased at your typical home improvement store.