Mercury

Once in awhile mercury can be found in its natural form in nature. It is difficult to mistake it for another metal because it is the only one that will not solidify until the temperature is at minus 40 degrees. Mercury is also distinguished by its high specific gravity, which is of 13.6. If you happen to stumble across a glob of mercury in nature it most likely means the presence of cinnibar, which is the main ore of mercury. Cinnibar can easily be recognized because of its red brick color and if the surface is oxidized the mineral will break very easily and show the color. One way to test it is to grind the specimen and then rub a penny across the power, if the penny picks up the mercy and turns into a silvery color you will know that it is mercury.

Mercury has been used in the gold and silver mining methods because of the convenience and easiness with which mercury will amalgamate with them. In gold placer mining, in which minute specks of gold are washed from sand or gravel deposits, mercury was often used to separate the gold from other heavy minerals. After all of the practical metal had been taken out from the ore, the mercury was dispensed down a long copper trough, which formed a thin coating of mercury on the exterior. The waste ore was then transferred down the trough, and any gold in the waste that was amalgamated with the mercury. This coating would sometimes get scraped off and refined to get rid of the mercury, leaving behind somewhat high purity gold. Mercury amalgamation was first useful to silver ores with the development of the patio process in Mexico in 1557. There were also additional amalgamation processes that were created for processing silver ores, including pan amalgamation. Today, mercury amalgamation has been changed by other methods to recuperate gold and silver from ore. Hazards of mercury toxic waste have played a part in the very close to disappearing of mercury amalgamation processes. However mercury amalgamation is still regularly used by small-scale gold placer miners, in particular in developing countries.

If you are considering getting into the prospecting business in a more serious way, you will probably not be content with just scooping up gold flakes as it is a process that takes a lot of time to do and you are probably thinking you could be using your time to get to the real deal. Once you have already mastered beyond the art of gold flakes, which means that you have probably already gotten used to using a sluice or a rocker instead of a pan, you will need to start amalgamating the gold, and then recover it. 

Something important to know about mercury is that it is dangerous. Most of the places or people that work with mercury are the large-scale miners. Only about .01 mg in a human’s body can cause death. Unfortunately after mercury has gotten into the body of a human, it cannot be taken out.