Process
Gold panning is a simple process. Once a suitable placer deposit is located, some gravel from it is scooped into a pan, where it is then gently agitated in water and the gold sinks to the bottom of the pan. Materials with a low specific gravity are allowed to spill out of the pan, whereas materials with a high specific gravity sink to the bottom of the sediment during agitation and remain within the pan for examination and collection by the gold panner. These dense materials usually consist primarily of a black, magnetite sand with whatever gemstones or metal dust that may be found in the deposit that is used for source material.
Gold panning usually turns up only minor gold dust that is usually collected as a souvenir in small clear tubes. Nuggets and considerable amounts of dust are occasionally found, but panning mining is not generally lucrative. Panning for gold can be used to locate the parent gold veins which are the source of most placer deposits.
Read more about this topic: Gold Panning
Famous quotes containing the word process:
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.... Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to.”
—Joseph Heller (b. 1923)
“come peace or war, the progress of America and Europe
Becomes a long process of deterioration—”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
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—Robert Bly (b. 1926)