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Treasure Hunting & Metal Detecting Forum Message Boards - Detector Hunter Whites Minelab Tesoro XP > Metal Detecting > Beginners (Moderators: xavier, Ridge Runner) >

tainted tailings?

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Dal

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	tainted tailings? « on: March 19, 2011, 08:30:04 pm »

I viewed a few videos on Youtube about searching out tailings piles. One video in particular showed a guy digging in a nice pile of crushed quartz, only to get warned about mercury and other toxic stuff in viewer comments. So, are all tailings piles tainted? Should they be avoided and should I search for the elusive "pocket gold" instead? With that question posed, is a metal detector a good tool for pocket gold, or is the old fashioned way the only way?

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	Re: tainted tailing's? « Reply #1 on: March 19, 2011, 08:58:24 pm »

LOL! The Tree people have made people believe that Mercury is the Demon of the Earth.

If I knew that the pile had mercury in it I'd hit it even harder looking for gold.

I've found some gold with Mercury on it before. No Big deal! Bottle it and keep it away from the clean gold and take care of it later.

NO Gold mine Tailing's are not all toxified.

Some of the Old Gold mine Tailing are magic.

Some times the old boys would just grab the Cream and let the little stuff slide to the side.

Newer detectors can see in those rocks.

We have a advantage, Eaaaa?

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« Last Edit: March 19, 2011, 09:14:02 pm by homefire »	Logged

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	Re: tainted tailings? « Reply #2 on: March 19, 2011, 09:14:09 pm »

I wouldn't eat the stuff (at least not on purpose), but mine tailings are going to be a lot less contaminated than mill tailings (the mercury and cyanide don't get added during the mining process...but you still have the naturally occuring heavy metal compounds). But if you want to play it safe, go ahead....that just leaves more for Homefire and me

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	Re: tainted tailings? « Reply #3 on: March 23, 2011, 01:16:57 pm »

Where mercury was really a problem was during the retorting process. Mercury was used to collect the flour gold, sucks it up like a vaccuum. Once the mercury was saturated it was heated until the mercury turned to vapor leaving the gold behind. These fumes were highly toxic and cause a variety of problems if you breathed them. And like BA said don't eat the stuff. We still figure thats what did in my grandad as they used the wood stove oven as a retort.

Continued contact with the skin can produce a leeching effect so don't pour it out into your hand. You would have to do that quite a lot to really do yourself in though.

Mercury was sometimes dumped into streams which is pretty bad. I believe Indonesia is still doing that, which is causing health issues in thier workers who have no protective gear.

Just being around old tailings won't kill you though, or I would be long dead

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	Re: tainted tailings? « Reply #4 on: March 23, 2011, 01:27:03 pm »

So you think the 11 Silver Mercury Amalgam filling I have won't kill me?

LOL!

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	Re: tainted tailings? « Reply #5 on: March 23, 2011, 01:32:22 pm »

Well there have been obvious side effects...... Grin

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	Re: tainted tailings? « Reply #6 on: March 25, 2011, 10:29:21 am »

That's what I was hoping to hear. I'll just use a potato if there's any there.

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