How is gold mined and extracted from the earth?

Gold is extracted from the earth using a combination of chemical processes. Here are the steps involved in extracting gold from the earth: 

1. Crushing: Large chunks of rock are broken down into smaller pieces using crushers.
2. Grinding: The smaller pieces of rock are ground into a fine slurry or powder using rotating drums filled with steel balls.
3. Leaching: The slurry is mixed with a chemical solvent, usually cyanide, which dissolves the gold out of the ore.
4. Carbon-in-pulp: The gold in the pulp adheres to small carbon grains that are introduced to the tank.
5. Thickening: The slurry is thickened with water to form pulp and run through a series of leaching tanks.
6. Filtering: The gold is filtered out of the leach solution by adding zinc dust.
7. Refining: The recovered raw gold is later refined into fine gold.

There are two principal mining methods used to obtain gold from the earth: placer and vein mining.

Placer mining is used when the metal is found in unconsolidated deposits of sand and gravel from which gold can be easily separated due to its high density. Vein, or lode mining, is the most important of all gold recovery methods.

Although each ounce of gold recovered requires the processing of about 100,000 ounces of ore, there is so much gold deposited in rock veins that this method accounts for more than half of the world's total gold production today. The gold in the veins may be of microscopic particle size, in nuggets or sheets, or in gold compounds. Regardless of how it is found, the ore requires extensive extraction and refining.

The cost of mining gold can vary depending on several factors, including the market price of materials, labor costs, taxation, cost inflation from capital investments, and more. In 2022, the average all-in sustaining costs (AISC) in the gold mining industry reached a record high, rising by 18% y-o-y to US$1,276/oz.

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