GEOL 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Artisanal Mining, Minamata Disease, Tanzanite

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering
• Course: GEOL 102
• Professor: Ronald C Peterson

Document Summary

Artisanal gold mining: large portion of gold mining (12%) Gold in africa: minimal equipment, no health and safety regulations no environmental control, poor people taken advantage of. Child labour: mess of rivers, mercury pollution. Gold in alaska: entrepreneurs --> make a mess of rivers. Mercury, diverting of rivers, operations in environmentally protected areas, destroying farmland, deforestation. Other mineral grains aren"t caught up in the mixture: use torch to heat/ boil off mercury as a vapor and the gold remains. Mercury pollution and poisoning: hg vapor highly toxic, symptoms include sensory impairment, disturbed sensation, and lack of coordination, mercury pollution. Distillation: alcohol evaporates before water boils off. Alcohol vapor rises and is cooled and condensed to drip down into a cup: with mercury retort: gold and mercury mixture: mercury boils off and it can be collected and recycled. From one spot in africa - merelani, tanzania: discovered in 1967, named by tiffany, east africa, near kenyan border, maasai tribe.