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Gold and silver
As two of the rarest metals on Earth, gold and silver have amazed humans for centuries. People have searched the world for silver and gold, hoping to fill their pockets with the shiny metals. And yet during all of human history, only enough gold has been extracted to fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools. And not every aspect of the metals is pretty. Mining gold and silver comes with many environmental consequences.
Book
The Nature of Gold
In 1896, a small group of prospectors discovered a stunningly rich pocket of gold at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers, and in the following two years thousands of individuals traveled to the area, hoping to find wealth in a rugged and challenging setting. Ever since that time, the Klondike Gold Rush - especially as portrayed in photographs of long lines of gold seekers marching up Chilkoot Pass - has had a hold on the popular imagination.
In this first environmental history of the gold rush, Kathryn Morse describes how the miners got to the Klondike, the mining technologies they employed, and the complex networks by which they obtained food, clothing, and tools. She looks at the political and economic debates surrounding the valuation of gold and the emerging industrial economy that exploited its extraction in Alaska, and explores the ways in which a web of connections among America s transportation, supply, and marketing industries linked miners to other industrial and agricultural laborers across the country. The profound economic and cultural transformations that supported the Alaska-Yukon gold rush ultimately reverberate to modern times.
The story Morse tells is often narrated through the diaries and letters of the miners themselves. The daunting challenges of traveling, working, and surviving in the raw wilderness are illustrated not only by the miners compelling accounts but by newspaper reports and advertisements. Seattle played a key role as gateway to the Klondike. A public relations campaign lured potential miners to the West and local businesses seized the opportunity to make large profits while thousands of gold seekers streamed through Seattle.
The drama of the miners journeys north, their trials along the gold creeks, and their encounters with an extreme climate will appeal not only to scholars of the western environment and of late-19th-century industrialism, but to readers interested in reliving the vivid adventure of the West s last great gold rush.
eBook
A history of gold dredging in Idaho
\"A revolution in placer mining from inception in the 1880s until its demise in the 1960s and its impact on Idaho, the nation's fourth leading producer of dredged gold which provides a lens through which to observe the practice and history of gold dredging around the world\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Fear and Fortune
Mongolia over the last decade has seen a substantial and ongoing gold rush. The widespread mining of gold looks at first glance to be a blessing for a desperately poor and largely pastoralist country where people's lives were disrupted by the end of the USSR and tens of millions of livestock were killed in devastating droughts in the early 2000s. Volatility and uncertainty as well as political and economic turmoil led many people to join the hopeful search for gold. This activity, born out of uncertain times, poses an intense moral problem; in the \"land of dust,\" disturbing the ground and extracting the precious metal is widely believed to have calamitous consequences. With gold retaining strong ties to the landscape and its many spirit beings, the fortune of the precious metal is inseparable from the fears that surround mining. Tracing the continuities and discontinuities between human and nonhuman worlds, Mette M. High follows the paths of gold as it is excavated and converted into \"polluted money,\" entering local shops and Buddhist monasteries, joining the illegal gold trade, and returning as \"renewed\" money for the \"big bosses\" of the gold mines.
High has done several years of fieldwork in Mongolia, spending time with the \"ninjas,\" as the miners are known locally, as well as the people who disapprove of their illegal activities and warn of the retribution that the land and its inhabitants may suffer as a result. This book is about radical change, or as many Mongolians put it, when life becomes \"strange\" and \"chaotic.\" High has gained a deep understanding of the processes by which Mongolians square a morally questionable activity with the lure of profit. How do they involve themselves with tainted sources of money, and can it ever be cleansed and made usable? Addressing how our lives and those of others are intimately intertwined,Fear and Fortuneoffers an expansive and capacious approach to understanding the high stakes involved in human economic life.
eBook
Off rock
After discovering a gold pocket on a distant planet, Jimmy Vik, a space miner facing a possible layoff, has to contend with a suspicious ex-girlfriend, an unreliable partner, and a rival mining company in his attempt to smuggle the gold off the planet.
Book
Investigation of Long-Term Roving Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining Activities Using Time-Series Sentinel-1 and Global Surface Water Datasets
Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is a significant source of gold production globally despite the sector being informal and illegal. The rapid increase in the number of roving mining camps has negatively impacted the surrounding environment; however, the formation and transformation of roving mining camps have not been well studied. This study investigated the long-term trends and significant hotspots of roving camp-type ASGM (R-C-ASGM) in Katingain Regency, Central Kalimantan Province, Indonesia, from 1988 to 2020 using remotely sensed data, including Sentinel-1 time-series, global surface water (GSW), and world landcover datasets. Results show that several active R-C-ASGM sites existed in the Galangan and Kalanaman areas in 2017/2018. According to the GSW dataset, the Galangan area was estimated to be formed earlier, whereas the Kalanaman areas were recently formed and were associated with the Kalanaman river expansion. Notably, the center of Galangan was still a significant R-C-ASGM hotspot. The findings of this study broaden our understanding of R-C-ASGM transformation and identify significant R-C-ASGM hotspots over a long period. This study contributes to the development of timely and appropriate interventions for strengthening environmental governance.
Journal Article
A global history of gold rushes
\"Nothing set the world in motion like gold. Gold rushes accelerated the global circulation of people, goods, capital, and technologies that transformed settler societies around the world. Yet, they are rarely considered in a global perspective. While in the past national histories have emphasized the role of gold rushes as accelerants of state formation, crucibles of national character, and watersheds of political development, the essays in Gold Rush begin from a different premise. They explore gold rushes as connected phenomena and emphasize the destructive power of the search for gold on indigenous communities and the environment, and their role as incubators of racial hierarchy and immigration restriction. The essays in Gold Rush showcase the best and most current research methodologies in global history - comparative, environmental, and transnational - to address these concerns. Gold Rush uses diverse themes and places as vantage points on the nineteenth century gold rushes - from the catalytic effect of the discovery of California placer gold in 1848 to the nostalgic rush to the beaches of Nome, Alaska, fifty years later; from anxious commentators discussing the public good and disorder of gold mining in Georgia, California, and Victoria to the worldwide discussion of the \"Chinese Question\" and the productivity of non-white labor in Africa; from the assertion of corporate control over lode mining to the destructive environmental and financial consequences of that control. At the heart of this book is the paradoxical power of gold rushes to connect and divide, to enrich and impoverish, to create and destroy\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
Mercury Pollution from Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Myanmar and Other Southeast Asian Countries
Mercury (Hg) is one of the most harmful metals and has been a public health concern according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is the world’s fastest-growing source of Hg and can release Hg into the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere. Hg has been widely used in ASGM industries throughout Southeast Asia countries, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Thailand. Here, 16 relevant studies were systematically searched by performing the PRISMA flow, combining the keywords of “Hg”, “ASGM”, and relevant study areas. Mercury concentrations exceeding the WHO and United States Environmental Protection Agency guideline values were reported in environmental (i.e., air, water, and soil) and biomonitoring samples (i.e., plants, fish, and human hair). ASGM-related health risks to miners and nonminers, specifically in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Myanmar, were also assessed. The findings indicated severe Hg contamination around the ASGM process, specifically the gold-amalgamation stage, was significantly high. To one point, Hg atmospheric concentrations from all observed studies was shown to be extremely high in the vicinity of gold operating areas. Attentions should be given regarding the public health concern, specifically for the vulnerable groups such as adults, pregnant women, and children who live near the ASGM activity. This review summarizes the effects of Hg in Myanmar and other Southeast Asian countries. In the future, more research and assessment will be required to investigate the current and evolving situation in ASGM communities.
Journal Article
Characterizing Time-Series Roving Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining Activities in Indonesia Using Sentinel-1 Data
The rapid growth of roving mining camps has negatively influenced their surrounding environment. Although artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is a major source of gold production, the mining activities and their activeness are not well revealed owing to their informal, illegal, and unregulated characteristics. This study characterizes the transformations of roving camp-type ASGM (R-C-ASGM) activities in Central of Katingan Regency, Central Kalimantan Province, Indonesia, from 2015 to 2021 using remotely sensed data, such as the time-series Sentinel-1 dataset. The results show that the growth of active R-C-ASGM sites was identified at the center of the Galangan mining region with expansions to the northwest part along the Kalanaman River, especially in 2021. Hence, these approaches identify the transformations of roving mining activities and their active or nonactive status even in tropical regions experiencing frequent heavy traffic rainstorms. They provide significant information on the socioenvironmental risks possibly caused at local and regional levels. Our results also inform the design of timely interventions suited to local conditions for strengthening environmental governance.
Journal Article