h a l f b a k e r y"Bun is such a sad word, is it not?" -- Watt, "Waiting for Godot"
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crevice covered log collects gold
The crevice covered log gradually accumulates gold nuggets, yet has net present value and is ecologically harmless way of prospecting gold | |
I thought of an eco friendly gold prospecting technique There is a thing called crevicing, where crevices fill up with heavy things like gold, then prospectors dig out the crevices to find nuggets.
Instead, take a log, put thousands or tens of thousands of little crevices on it, then toss it near
a river mouth. It gradually accumulates gold nuggets, then pull the log out and harvest the gold. if people forget about it, it is just a log. If the thing accumulates gold at a measurable rate, then the future value could be calculated and the person could get money at the present for the gold accumulating logs laying around
[link]
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This is probably not a completely bad idea,
[beany]. |
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Issues:
(1) Logs have been known to float. Logs that satk
at water fast enough to carry gold may also roll.
Either of these could have a negative impact on
the recovery of gold or, atdeed, of the log. |
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(2) Logs would be vulnerable to being harvested by
unscrupulous people, if there are any such people
around. But |
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(3) I do sort of like the idea of engateeratg a
section of river bed to trap gold over the long
term. |
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I'm gonna go [+] on this. |
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Done in Alaska by laying segments of rock in the river at low flow season, and harvesting around them when it comes around again. |
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Native American tribes did the same game with rocks as well. |
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But they were not able to spell and punctutate proberly. |
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Nice. This was his anno to "Gold panning submersible bot". |
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Only problem I can see is that the log crevices would need to be the lowest crevices available in any given stretch of river.
Logs like to float unless forced not to. |
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There's a Captain's log joke in there somewhere... |
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Logs with crevices pre-impregnated with custard would decrease the floatiness of the logs. Or not. |
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As an alternative, you could just dump about 50-100
cubic metres of mercury in the headwaters, and dig a
steep-sided trench across the river mouth. After a
few days, just go to the trench and pump out the
mercury, along with dissolved gold from the full
length of the river. |
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Well, the crevices have had thousands of years for the gold
to aggregate so your log would 'gain value' very slowly
indeed. And it would presumably need to be buried at the
bottom of the channel as the gold particles need to fall into
the crevices. Having said that, I do believe that some
placer miners do harvest gold particles trapped in mossy
boulders. |
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