Meaning of Special
Gold Related Words

Auriferous: Something that contains gold or that bares gold.

Assay: To evaluate the amount and quality of the minerals that are in an ore.

Arrastre: A simple and competent ore grinding mill. This consists of a big stone at the end of a pole attached to a central pivot, dragged in circles by a horse or mule in this manner pulverizing the ore.

Amalgam: This is usually a physical alloy of Mercury with gold or silver. Liquid mercury has the ability to dissolve other metals to create alloys and these alloys are called amalgams. Some amalgam examples are gold and mercury, silver and mercury and copper and mercury and all of these are used in dentistry.

Alluvial:
Pertaining to mud, gravel or soil deposited by a stream, river, or running water away from the actual source leading to the formation of an alluvial fan such as in a delta at the end of a river.

Alloy: An alloy is a mixture, either in solution or compound, of two or more elements, at least one of which is a metal, or where the resulting material has properties that are metallic. An alloy with two components is called a binary alloy and one with three is a ternary alloy, one with four is a quaternary alloy. The result is a metallic material with properties that are different from those of its components.

Bar: This is a name given to the sandbars and gravel bars and rock that are found in the rivers, mainly when they bare gold.

Black sand: Black sand is a heavy, weakly magnetic, glossy, semi-metallic combination of regularly fine sands, found as an element of a placer deposit. Black sand is usually made up of magnetite, tourmaline, ilmenite, chromite, and cassiterite.

Benches: All types of rocks or gravel that have the shape of terraces or steps. Bench placers can be found on the canyon walls on top of the present stream beds.

Color: Any gold no matter the amount, that has been found in a prospectors pan after a sample of dirt has been panned.

Diggings: Refers to a place or claim that is being worked on.

Dredging: A type of vacuuming that is done on gold bearing gravels from the bottom of streams or rivers.

Diorite: An intrusive igneous rock of intermediate composition, often called “salt-and-pepper” rock because of its speckled black and white look. The major minerals present are plagioclase and hornblende. Around the world, diorite forms underneath volcanoes along convergent boundaries. Gold sometimes occurs in diorite.

Drift: A horizontal tunnel that follows a vein or gold bearing gravels.

Dry Washer: A machine that separates gold from gravels due to the flow of air that is forced.

Float: Pieces of loose ore that is broken off a vein that is outcropping. Gold prospectors will follow the float in order to find a lode.

Glory Hole: A little hole that has a rich deposit of gold in it.

Gulch: A little canyon or ravine.

Gravel Benches: Gravel deposits that are left on canyon walls through erosion of steam.

Har Drock Mining: Another term that is used for lode mining.

Headframe: The support structure placed at the entrance of a mine over a shaft. It is used for hoisting.

Hydraulic Mining: Hydraulic mining is a large-scale form of placer mining. Placer mining was the original form of gold mining in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in northern California. Placer mining normally involves looking for geologically ancient alluvial deposits (former stream beds). This type of gold mining is no longer allowed though. Huge hoses were used to force big streams of water onto canyon walls that contained gold bearing gravels. The walls were washed away into sluice boxes and the gold was then picked out.

Iron Pyrite: A common mineral (iron disulfide) that has a pale yellow color to it and a bright metallic shine. This is also commonly known as fool’s gold.

Lode: A crack in the earth that has been filled with minerals and contains ore in it. A vein or massive ore body.

Matrix: The material that gold can be found in.

Placer: An alluvial deposit that holds particles of some valuable mineral such as gold and is usually found in stream and river gravels.

Pocket: A rich deposit of gold that occurs in veins or in gravels.

Poke: A leather pouch that was used by miners in the past to hold their gold.

Quartz: A common rock-forming mineral that consists of silicon and oxygen and in which gold is often found.

Retort: A device used to separate gold from mercury.

Rich Float: Rocks that have gold that have been worked loose from a lode.

Rocker: A rocker is a device that was used by the miners in the past during the Gold Rush. It consisted of a sluice box that was mounted on rockers with a hopper on the top to sort the material. The gravel was shoved into the hopper and water was then poured on the top, which washed the gold down over the riffles while the hopper was rocked. The rocking movement helped the gold to settle.

Schist: A metamorphic crystalline rock that can be split very easily.

Sluice Box: An extended wooden or metal trough with riffles, over which alluvial gravel is washed to recuperate gold.

Sulfide: A compound of sulphur and some other metal element.

Stamp Mill: A machine that is used to mash ore.

Tailings: Tailings are the materials that are gotten rid of when ore is processed.

Terrace Deposits: These are gravel benches that are on located on high canyon walls.

Wall: The rock that is positioned on the side of a vein or on a vein.

Wire Gold: Gold that is thinly fastened through rock.