When our earth is alread abused by us in the form pollution, should we continue digging its heart for non-productive metals like gold, silver and also Stones like Jewels?
They are used only for Luxury and Show off of wealth.
A lot of Manpower and resources are wasted in Searching, Digging, Refining, Distributing and Protecting this Metal.
Yes, it is only a Metal. It was OK in the past but now it is unnecessary and damaging to the Nature and Ecosystem.
Oh God give us the Wisdom to know what is good and what is Bad !
2006-08-30 08:31:01 · 11 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Earth Sciences & Geology
Most of the above answers are correct to some extent.
First of all, we in the mining business have a saying - if it can't be grown, its gotta be mined. And not all of the gold that we use comes from mining - a lot of gold is recycled.
And second of all, gold is not just a metal. It has very unique properties that can not be duplicated by any other metal. For example, if gold was cheap enough, we would use it instead of copper for electrical wires. Gold is used not only for jewelry but also for currency, electronics, medicines, dentistry, lasers, heat shielding, and other uses.
And third of all, if gold mining was "OK in the past" why is it no longer acceptable to you now? Gold mining today is carried out under much stricter environmental policies than ever before, with worker safety, environmental safety, and reclamation an integral part of the mining process.
A lot of energy and manpower is used - not wasted - in exploration, mining, and recovery of gold and other metals and minerals. That doesn't necessarily make it all bad. Every person on earth uses the rewards of mining - you used mineral resources like silica, copper, uranium, coal, iron, aluminum, tungsten, silica - and gold - to write your question on Yahoo answers. Without metals, we'd be back to the Bronze Age - no wait, that needs copper and zinc!
Now, to answer your question - the amount of rock that needs to be "dug" to extract one gram of gold depends on the grade of the ore. If gold is the only metal recovered, the average gold grade in today's mines is about 10 grams per metric tonne of ore, so that means about 100 kg to prodcue 1 g. Gold ore grades range from about 1 g/t to 30 g/t, or even more. The low grade mines, like Round Mountain, Nevada need to process a tonne of rock to recover 1 gram of gold, and mine another tonne - depending on the stripping ratio. High grade mines like Bulyanhulu, Tanzania need to mine and process a lot less, maybe 50 kg of ore to get the one gram of gold.
A lot of gold is recovered as a by-product of other metals, such as copper and molybdenum at Bingham Canyon, Utah and copper at Grasberg, Indonesia.
2006-08-30 18:30:51 · answer #1 · answered by minefinder 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Emilystarts is right in most respects....(healing properties of jewels, oh seriously.....) It's easy to criticize the mining of silver and gold, but the open mining of sand, gravel, clays, metals (nickel, iron, aluminum and others) leave much more of an environmental footprint. Without a doubt, the fewer natural resources you purchase, the better. But don't dare point at others' purchase of a gold watch as environmentally unsound when you just got done purchasing a new Prius which required tons of ore to be processed.
As the other guy said, the concentration of gold is not the same everywhere, and it is only extracted where the concentration is much higher than normal, typically where water has deposited it along veins or cracks within the earth or volcanic deposits.
2006-08-30 08:54:47 · answer #2 · answered by jazznsax 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Non-productive metals? Honey, gold is used in making internal medical devices such as HEART VALVES. Silver is used in surgery because plasic cannot pin your hip back together. Jewels hold healing properties and, well, semiconductors need crystals to run your computer so let's give that up, too. And did you know alot of medical treatments and advancements are mined? We couldn't treat cancer if the radon wasn't mined.
If you would have taken a geology course, you will know that 1% of the world mines like you described. The process has evolved. And you couldn't go a day without using something that had to be mined.
(Kitty litter, plastics components, xathan gum {in almost every packaged food}, steel, iron, aluminum, molybenum, every part of a car {even elements in the fiberglass were mined.} Keep an open mind, okay?)
2006-08-30 08:42:47 · answer #3 · answered by emilystartsfires 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Good Thought.
There are many uses for these metals and gems...
and then there is just the plain old show of wealth and power.
I'm no expert, but I would presume it all depends on where the excavating is taking place, and what is being mined. Sometimes mining is strictly for one particular item and all other material is left behind, and other times several items are being processed.
Other factors are who owns the land and who is doing the excavating or extracting? We all know there is a lot of waste with Government projects, and much less with investors/owners.
2006-08-30 08:50:04 · answer #4 · answered by Philip B 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
It is quite a lot of tonnage of earth that needs to be processed for an ounce of gold to be acquired. It is so cost ineffective that there is now a company in California that processes old computer parts and extracts gold from them. They spend less money, time, energy to acquire an ounce of gold than any gold mine.
2006-08-30 10:14:53 · answer #5 · answered by quntmphys238 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The average amount of gold in the planet's crust is 0.004 parts per million (reference 1). So, for four grams of gold, you'd need one billion grams of rock- or one million kilograms- or 250,000 kg of rock for one gram.
Now, that's average, of course. Nobody goes out and mines away a mountain for gold unless there is a marketable concentration of gold in that rock- and what makes it economically feasible is the market price of that element. At $500 an ounce, it may not be worth extracting it from, say, mine tipple that has already been processed. But at $700 an ounce, it may be worthwhile to cyanide leach a pile that has already been treated. Make sense?
Seawater may have gold at 1 to 11 ppm (reference 2). Wikipedia says that extraction may be economically feasible at concentrations as low as 0.5 ppm, but open pit mines can be from 1-5 ppm, and for it to be visible as much as 30 ppm must be present (reference 3).
Therefore, at 5 ppm, one would have 5 mg per kilogram of ore. 200 kg (about 440 pounds) of ore at this level would contain one gram of gold. It all depends upon what your source rock is.
2006-08-30 09:03:24 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Dr of what, pray tell?
It depends very much on where you dig. There are possibly places still left on the Earth where one need not dig at all.
The very metals that you decry are essential in producing the instrument with which you decry them, and the power to broadcast the same.
2006-08-30 11:27:24 · answer #7 · answered by Helmut 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I would tell the aliens that I know it's a big joke. I would then remind them, that they were also victims of the big joke. I would point out that they, as well as us and all other life, are all sitting on large boulders that float about in endless space. I would also mention, whoever put us on our own rock, put many varieties of life here also. When it comes to food, our good and kind god told us to eat each other.
2016-03-27 01:29:53 · answer #8 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
At today's gold prices it requires the following ratio: approximately 1 ounce of gold per ton of rock.
2006-08-30 15:12:41 · answer #9 · answered by idiot detector 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
one gram - if you happen to hit a nugget on your first try
2006-08-30 12:52:00 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋