Gold is a popular metal in the world because the characteristics, properties and composition. This metal has been a valuable and highly sought-after precious metal for coinage, jewelry, and other arts since long before the beginning of recorded history. The world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry.
Gold Ore occurs often in free elemental (native) form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as electrum) and also naturally alloyed with copper and palladium. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides).In 2014 a total of 183,600 tonnes of gold have been mined in human history. This is equivalent to 9513 m3 of gold.
Many mining companies have exploited gold deposits to make the biggest gold mines in the world, extracting gold ore requires large facilities. Open-pit mining, open-cut mining or opencast mining is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow. The result of using this technique is a huge visible scar on the earth surface
Here Is A New List Of The Top 5 The Largest Open Pit Gold Mines In The World
1. Chuquicamata Mine In Chile
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| The open pit Chuquicamata mine in Chile |
Chuquicamata mine is the largest open pit mine in the world, has a length of approximately 4.3 km , with 3km wide and with a depth of about 850m. The open pit Chuquicamata mine, located 1,650 kilometers (1,000 miles) north of Santiago, in the north of Chile, just outside of Calama at 9,350 feet (2,850m) above sea level.
Mining operation in Chuquicamata done by the Coldeco at once owner of these mines. Chuquicamata mines produce copper as a main product and in 2014 this mine produce 340.4kt of fine copper in cathode and copper concentrate, gold production in Chuquicamata mine 757 t gold and 186.9 t silver. Another product of this mine is molybdenum and sulphuric acid, in 2014 produce 14.6kt molybdenum and 1.0 million tonnes of sulphuric acid
Mineral deposit Chuquicamata mine is a classic porphyry copper lies on the Chuqui porphyry complex. The main-stage veins, comprising quartz, pyrite, chalcopyrite and bornite, opened up during the dextral shear of the west fault system.
Mining operation in Coldeco uses conventional open pit mining methods, with A conventional truck-and-shovel operation ,.Underground conveyors transport the crushed ore to the mill for flotation process and smelting the concentrate
2. Bingham Canyon Mine In United States
The Bingham Canyon Mine, also known as the Kennecott Copper Mine, is largest open pit mine in the world has a wide of approximately 2.5 miles (4 km) and with a depth of about 0.97 km
The Bingham Canyon Mine located in southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The mine is owned by Rio Tinto Group, an international mining and exploration company headquartered in the United Kingdom and the mining operations at Bingham Canyon Mine are managed through Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation which operates the mine, a concentrator plant, a smelter, and a refinery.
In addition to producing about 300,000 tons of copper a year, the Bingham Canyon Mine also produces approximately 400,000 ounces of gold; 4 million ounces of silver; 30 million pounds of molybdenum; and 1 million tons of sulfuric acid annually.
The Bingham Canyon Mining uses a rotary drilling/blasting – shovel/truck – in-pit crushing system. Mining equipment includes Caterpillar mechanical drive and Komatsu electric-drive trucks, mostly of 218t-capacity, to service ten P&H electric rope shovels, semi-mobile in-pit crushing plant and conveyor system
Facilities ore processing fitted with some of the world’s largest SAG and ball mills, and large flotation cells. The copper concentrate is piped about 27km to the smelter. The smelting facilities comprising a new primary flash smelter and flash converter system, plus a slag treatment plant. The converter treats matte that has been granulated and powdered. The 98.6% copper from the new converter is refined to 99.5% copper in two anode furnaces.
3. Grasberg Mine In Indonesia
The Grasberg mine complex (also known as the Freeport Mine) is one of the largest gold and copper mining operations in the world and the largest open pit mine in the world. Earthobservatory.nasa illustrates, the approximately 4-kilometer-wide open-pit.
Grasberg Mine The largest Gold Mine in world located at Tembagapura, province of Papua Irian Jaya in Indonesia near on the western half of the island of Papua New Guinea owned by Freeport-McMoRan, which owns 90.64% of PT Freeport Indonesia, the principal operating subsidiary in Indonesia, including 9.36% owned through its wholly owned subsidiary, PT Indocopper Investama. The Government of Indonesia owns the remaining 9.36% of PT Freeport Indonesia.
Grasberg open pit began open-pit mining of the Grasberg ore body in 1990 and Open-pit operations are expected to continue through late 2017. The Grasberg mine has proven reserves of 2.8 billion tonnes of copper and also contains gold and silver. The open-pit mine typically produces about 140,000 tons of copper ore per day, and underground operations have 80,000 tons of daily output
Mining operation in open pit mine the Grasberg using Caterpillar R1700 load-haul-dump vehicles (LHDs) at the extraction level with a truck haulage level to the gyratory crusher. Mineral ore transported by conveyor to centralized mine facilities.
Ore undergoes primary crushing at the mine, before being delivered by ore passes to the mill complex for further crushing, grinding and flotation. Grasberg’s milling and concentrating complex is the largest in the world, with four crushers and two giant semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) units processing a daily average of 240,000t of ore.
A flotation reagent is used to separate concentrate from the ore. Slurry containing 60-40 copper concentrate is drawn along three pipelines to the seaport of Amamapare, over 70 miles away, where it is dewatered. Once filtered and dried, the concentrate – containing copper, gold and silver – is shipped to smelters around the world.
4. Escondida Mine Chile
Escondida mine is the world's largest open pit mine having a size of approximately 3.9km long, 2.7km wide and 645m deep. The Escondida mine with production of copper, gold and silver is a joint venture between BHP-Billiton (57.5%), Rio Tinto (30%), a Japanese consortium (10%) and the International Finance Corporation (2.5%) and location this mine in Atacama Desert in Antofagasta Region, Chile.
Escondida mine in 2014 produced a total of 1.154 million tonnes of copper, with approximately 302,000 tons in the form of cathodes, and others are mostly in the form of concentrates
Mining method in Escondida mine is a conventional open-pit operation processing sulphide and oxide ores. The mining fleet consists of nine Bucyrus 495-B Erie loading shovels fitted buckets, 24 Caterpillar 793B, 28 Komatsu 830-E and 23 Caterpillar 793C dump trucks, each of 218t capacity.
Escondida mine produces copper concentrate, through a flotation process of sulphide ore, and copper cathodes, using a leaching process of oxide and sulphide ore. The sulphide concentrator employs crushing, milling and flotation circuits. 12m-high, 4m-square column cells are used for cleaning the bulk sulphide concentrate. The separate oxide ore plant uses solvent extraction-electrowinning technology to produce cathode copper metal directly from leached ore. Oxide ore is crushed and sized then heap leached, the dissolved copper being recovered directly by electrolysis.
5. Muruntau Mine Uzbekistan
The Muruntau mine is the world's largest open pit with the open pit measures about 3.5 kilometres by 3 kilometres and has a current mining depth of 600m, which is planned to be extended beyond 1,000m.
This mining complex , located in the Kyzyl Kum Desert of Uzbekistan and owned by Navoi Mining & Metallurgy Combinat (NGMK). Gold production in Muruantu mine is believed to produce about 2.6 million ounces of gold in 2014 and remaining resource base, which estimated at about 170 million ounces of gold
Gold mining at Muruntau is conducted using a truck and conveyor ore transportation system. The overburden is taken to the crushing and transhipping points using cyclic flow technology. The ore is crushed using Metso LT160 crusher equipped with advanced Metso DNA automation system.
Gold in Muruntau mine is extracted using the heap leaching method that helps in efficient extraction of gold, even from low-grade ores. Sorption and filter-free process is used for extracting the gold. It also extracts refined sliver and palladium by-product.
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| Bingham Canyon Mine located in southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, United States |
The Bingham Canyon Mine, also known as the Kennecott Copper Mine, is largest open pit mine in the world has a wide of approximately 2.5 miles (4 km) and with a depth of about 0.97 km
The Bingham Canyon Mine located in southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The mine is owned by Rio Tinto Group, an international mining and exploration company headquartered in the United Kingdom and the mining operations at Bingham Canyon Mine are managed through Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation which operates the mine, a concentrator plant, a smelter, and a refinery.
In addition to producing about 300,000 tons of copper a year, the Bingham Canyon Mine also produces approximately 400,000 ounces of gold; 4 million ounces of silver; 30 million pounds of molybdenum; and 1 million tons of sulfuric acid annually.
The Bingham Canyon Mining uses a rotary drilling/blasting – shovel/truck – in-pit crushing system. Mining equipment includes Caterpillar mechanical drive and Komatsu electric-drive trucks, mostly of 218t-capacity, to service ten P&H electric rope shovels, semi-mobile in-pit crushing plant and conveyor system
Facilities ore processing fitted with some of the world’s largest SAG and ball mills, and large flotation cells. The copper concentrate is piped about 27km to the smelter. The smelting facilities comprising a new primary flash smelter and flash converter system, plus a slag treatment plant. The converter treats matte that has been granulated and powdered. The 98.6% copper from the new converter is refined to 99.5% copper in two anode furnaces.
3. Grasberg Mine In Indonesia
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| Open pit in Grasberg Mine At Tembagapura, province of Papua Irian Jaya in Indonesia |
The Grasberg mine complex (also known as the Freeport Mine) is one of the largest gold and copper mining operations in the world and the largest open pit mine in the world. Earthobservatory.nasa illustrates, the approximately 4-kilometer-wide open-pit.
Grasberg Mine The largest Gold Mine in world located at Tembagapura, province of Papua Irian Jaya in Indonesia near on the western half of the island of Papua New Guinea owned by Freeport-McMoRan, which owns 90.64% of PT Freeport Indonesia, the principal operating subsidiary in Indonesia, including 9.36% owned through its wholly owned subsidiary, PT Indocopper Investama. The Government of Indonesia owns the remaining 9.36% of PT Freeport Indonesia.
Grasberg open pit began open-pit mining of the Grasberg ore body in 1990 and Open-pit operations are expected to continue through late 2017. The Grasberg mine has proven reserves of 2.8 billion tonnes of copper and also contains gold and silver. The open-pit mine typically produces about 140,000 tons of copper ore per day, and underground operations have 80,000 tons of daily output
Mining operation in open pit mine the Grasberg using Caterpillar R1700 load-haul-dump vehicles (LHDs) at the extraction level with a truck haulage level to the gyratory crusher. Mineral ore transported by conveyor to centralized mine facilities.
Ore undergoes primary crushing at the mine, before being delivered by ore passes to the mill complex for further crushing, grinding and flotation. Grasberg’s milling and concentrating complex is the largest in the world, with four crushers and two giant semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) units processing a daily average of 240,000t of ore.
A flotation reagent is used to separate concentrate from the ore. Slurry containing 60-40 copper concentrate is drawn along three pipelines to the seaport of Amamapare, over 70 miles away, where it is dewatered. Once filtered and dried, the concentrate – containing copper, gold and silver – is shipped to smelters around the world.
4. Escondida Mine Chile
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| Escondida mine in Atacama Desert in Antofagasta Region, Chile |
Escondida mine is the world's largest open pit mine having a size of approximately 3.9km long, 2.7km wide and 645m deep. The Escondida mine with production of copper, gold and silver is a joint venture between BHP-Billiton (57.5%), Rio Tinto (30%), a Japanese consortium (10%) and the International Finance Corporation (2.5%) and location this mine in Atacama Desert in Antofagasta Region, Chile.
Escondida mine in 2014 produced a total of 1.154 million tonnes of copper, with approximately 302,000 tons in the form of cathodes, and others are mostly in the form of concentrates
Mining method in Escondida mine is a conventional open-pit operation processing sulphide and oxide ores. The mining fleet consists of nine Bucyrus 495-B Erie loading shovels fitted buckets, 24 Caterpillar 793B, 28 Komatsu 830-E and 23 Caterpillar 793C dump trucks, each of 218t capacity.
Escondida mine produces copper concentrate, through a flotation process of sulphide ore, and copper cathodes, using a leaching process of oxide and sulphide ore. The sulphide concentrator employs crushing, milling and flotation circuits. 12m-high, 4m-square column cells are used for cleaning the bulk sulphide concentrate. The separate oxide ore plant uses solvent extraction-electrowinning technology to produce cathode copper metal directly from leached ore. Oxide ore is crushed and sized then heap leached, the dissolved copper being recovered directly by electrolysis.
5. Muruntau Mine Uzbekistan
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| Open Pit in Muruntau mine Uzbekistan |
The Muruntau mine is the world's largest open pit with the open pit measures about 3.5 kilometres by 3 kilometres and has a current mining depth of 600m, which is planned to be extended beyond 1,000m.
This mining complex , located in the Kyzyl Kum Desert of Uzbekistan and owned by Navoi Mining & Metallurgy Combinat (NGMK). Gold production in Muruantu mine is believed to produce about 2.6 million ounces of gold in 2014 and remaining resource base, which estimated at about 170 million ounces of gold
Gold mining at Muruntau is conducted using a truck and conveyor ore transportation system. The overburden is taken to the crushing and transhipping points using cyclic flow technology. The ore is crushed using Metso LT160 crusher equipped with advanced Metso DNA automation system.
Gold in Muruntau mine is extracted using the heap leaching method that helps in efficient extraction of gold, even from low-grade ores. Sorption and filter-free process is used for extracting the gold. It also extracts refined sliver and palladium by-product.
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