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Gold Prospecting
Small Scale Gold Mining
how much gold/tonne to make a profit
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<blockquote data-quote="user 4386" data-source="post: 476045" data-attributes="member: 4386"><p>Victorian quartz vein gold. A vein that averaged only 2 or 3 g/t and was only a few metres wide would not be economic. Most vein deposits of that size (large ones - say a couple of million tonnes of quartz ore) need around 5 to 9 g/t to be economic. In places like Bendigo the economic veins that size were usually 12 to 20 g/t. For a small miner with a vein only tens of cm wide you would probably need 90 g/t or similar to really make any money, but at 20 g/t plus it might be a hobby mine. However large volumes of ore tens of metres wide (many tens of millions of tonnes of ore) that can be open cut at surface, it might be economic at 1.5 to 2.5 g/t. The lowest grade mine I know is in Alaska ("Fort Knox") and averages 0.38 g/t gold - but it is hundreds of millions of tonnes. To get an idea what that looks like, a cubic metre of rock has a mass of around 2 to 3 tonnes.....</p><p></p><p>And as many people have said, that is all just a ball=park indication (so many things affect economics). And to <strong><em>average</em></strong> 5 g/t you would expect to see many assay values of 10 to 20 g/t.</p><p></p><p>These figures are based on actual mines being worked.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="user 4386, post: 476045, member: 4386"] Victorian quartz vein gold. A vein that averaged only 2 or 3 g/t and was only a few metres wide would not be economic. Most vein deposits of that size (large ones - say a couple of million tonnes of quartz ore) need around 5 to 9 g/t to be economic. In places like Bendigo the economic veins that size were usually 12 to 20 g/t. For a small miner with a vein only tens of cm wide you would probably need 90 g/t or similar to really make any money, but at 20 g/t plus it might be a hobby mine. However large volumes of ore tens of metres wide (many tens of millions of tonnes of ore) that can be open cut at surface, it might be economic at 1.5 to 2.5 g/t. The lowest grade mine I know is in Alaska ("Fort Knox") and averages 0.38 g/t gold - but it is hundreds of millions of tonnes. To get an idea what that looks like, a cubic metre of rock has a mass of around 2 to 3 tonnes..... And as many people have said, that is all just a ball=park indication (so many things affect economics). And to [b][i]average[/i][/b] 5 g/t you would expect to see many assay values of 10 to 20 g/t. These figures are based on actual mines being worked. [/QUOTE]
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Gold Prospecting
Small Scale Gold Mining
how much gold/tonne to make a profit
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