is it possible to remove a vein of gold less than 8" in rock with a hammer and chisel?

Question

A pick axe? then a chisel?

Answer 1

Almost anything is possible, but it won't be easy.

Somehow I doubt the 8" vein you've got is pure gold, its more likely a combination of gold and gangue (waste) minerals like quartz and calcite.

The difficulty of "mining" a small vein like this will depend on the size of the vein (8"), the attitude (flat, steep etc), its hardness and competency, the hardness and competency of surrounding rocks, and if there are any natural breaks such as fractures between the vein material and the surrounding rocks.

If everything is accessible and close to surface, a hammer and a chisel (wear safety glasses!) should be able to remove the first few inches or even few feet of vein material. The deeper you go the more difficult it gets. At some point you will have to start removing the surrounding rock to give you access to the vein, and that is called the "waste to ore" ratio or the "stripping" ratio.

If the enclosing (waste) rock is very soft, you could dig or blast it away, and the vein material should be left well exposed and easy to remove. However if the enclosing rock is hard then blasting will mix everything up and you will have to sort through the pile of blasted rock (called muck) to recover the vein material.

Now once you have your gold-bearing rock separated from the waste rock, you still need to separate the gold from the quartz (or whatever gangue minerals you've got). If the gold is "native" gold (not tied up with refractory minerals like arsenopyrite) and sufficiently coarse, then you should be able to crush the gold-bearing rock with a mortar and pestle, and then pan the gold from the quartz beause gold is so heavy. If the gold is very fine or if its refractory, then the difficulty of recovering the gold probably isn't worth your while on such a small vein.

Hope that helps, and good luck!

Answer 2

Yes it is possible

Gold is a highly malleable metal that can be beaten into sheets that are 0.0001 cm or 1 micron thick!

You can actually do it with just a hammer as gold is quite soft
If you use a chisel, it may crack
A pick axe will ruin it!