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All About
Gold!
At the Cresson Mine near Victor, gold ore
is mined on a very large scale. More than
300 Coloradans work here, mining nearly
64,000 tons of ore and 98,000 tons of waste each day. After drilling and blasting, the ore is
excavated using machines that can dig room-full bites, and then hauled off in
monstrous trucks that are even bigger.
After being finely crushed, the ore is deposited in
carefully-prepared large basins. Then water mixed with
special chemicals is slowly percolated through the piles
to dissolve the tiny specks of gold. The process is very
much like you use every day to brew your morning cup of
coffee or tea. Gold - enriched water drained from those piles is
collected, the gold extracted, and finally melted to
create the gold buttons seen here.
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Touching $420,000 dore buttons
at the Cresson Mine
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Each button weighs about 61 pounds, which is about 890 troy ounces
of precious metal.
The buttons contain an average of 620 ounces of gold and 270
ounces of silver.
Each dore button contains
about $420,000 in gold value.
The value of a button changes with gold and silver prices. Spot prices at
the end of March 2007 were $663/oz for gold and $13/oz for silver. |
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Field
Trips
“THE EARTH BENEATH US”
An
informative ten-minute video that shows you the idea behind the Course, and how the
learning program all fits together to help you in the classroom.
(video available soon)
More About Gold from the
Mineral
Information Institute
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