A quarry where gold is mined. Golden fever. About gold mining in the Moscow region. What is a primary deposit

In Vancouver, Canada, the finals of the Grand Prix in figure skating took place. For Russia, the tournament was unsuccessful: not a single domestic athlete won a gold medal. Single figure skater Alina Zagitova, who went to Canada as a favorite, became the second. According to Olympic silver medalist and choreographer Ilya Averbukh, Russia "lost this fight."

The final tournament of the Grand Prix series in figure skating of the 2018/19 season has ended in Canada. Among Russian athletes, no one was able to win a gold medal. The leaders of domestic skating Alina Zagitova and Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, performing in the women's singles category, finished in second and third places, respectively. Her main rival, 16-year-old Japanese figure skater Rika Kihira, prevented the triumph of student Eteri Tutberidze.

If Tuktamysheva went to Canada just to enjoy skating and her success this season, then Zagitova really had a huge burden of responsibility. However, the Olympic champion could not skate the short program cleanly, and then gross mistakes in a random number. Kihira made a mistake once, filling up the combination of a triple axel + triple toe loop. The judge took off quite a lot of points from the Japanese, but everything else was performed perfectly.

This was indirectly confirmed by Zagitova after the final, saying that she would not be able to perform quarter jumps now. Alina also admitted that it was difficult for her during the season due to increased expectations and press pressure. This final was left for Kihira, but in the near future her competition with Zagitova may become the main confrontation of women's figure skating.

21-year-old Tuktamysheva became the third - a good result for her. Elizabeth repeatedly repeated before the final that she did not expect to win in Vancouver.

Another representative of Russia Sofya Samodurova showed the fifth result.

“I went through a lot, through ups and downs, gained experience, letting go of the excitement and understanding what I ride for. At my age, it is important not to compete, but to enjoy work, to love your job, ”TASS quotes Tuktamysheva.

Many questions were left by the performance of dance couples. The Russians Alexandra Stepanova / Ivan Bukin went to Canada as the main contenders for victory, but they faced judicial "hooliganism" in the short program, and could not catch up in the free program. But other Russian athletes pleased Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov. The couple scored 201.37 points in the sum of two programs and became the second.

It is also noteworthy that young people for the first time in their careers have overcome the bar of 200 points.

So the silver of the Grand Prix of Sinitsin and Katsalapov can be recorded as an asset. Another domestic dance couple Tiffany Zagorski/Jonathan Gureyro earned 184.37 in total, taking the final fifth place. With great joy, the judges gave the gold to the Americans Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donoghue (205.35), who never received the highest level of difficulty. The judging of dance couples in the Grand Prix finals will most likely be the subject of discussion for a long time to come.

A real sensation was presented by sports couples. After the failed short program, the French Vanessa James and Morgan Sipre were only fourth, but in an arbitrary number they unexpectedly showed such a high-quality performance that they soared to the first line.

Cheng Peng and Jin Yang, leading after the short program, eventually finished second.

The Russian couple Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov were wrong a lot and often. In the short number, a triple jump was littered, and in the free skate, the skaters completely fell after the ejection and filled up the cascade of a triple and two double jumps. As a result - only the third place. On the fourth line are

One of the readers of the blog told about where and how you can look at real natural gold. The easiest option is to drive to one of the quarries producing sand and gravel. These small grains of gold were mined in a sand and gravel quarry.

Someone will say this is nonsense. Maybe so if we consider on a global scale. Consider the grains against the background of a ruler with millimeter divisions.

They already look like a bunch. It seems like there is already something. The true size of the grains in the next photo.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of sand in the alluvial deposits of the Moscow region, and as we know, the density of gold is higher than the density of sand, and metal grains fall through the sand without accumulating. When inspecting the sides, it is necessary to find interlayers with a high content of gravel and an admixture of clay. Samples should be taken from different places and one bucket is enough. The task is to wash the sample to a black concentrate and not wash off the gold. The flushing technique itself is not complicated, but like any business it requires repeating the same movement many many times and only then will skill and skill come. For the purpose of preservation and processing in more comfortable conditions, wash black concentrate into a jar.
This is what black concentrate looks like on a regular dustpan.

There are different technologies further, but one of the options that facilitates further work is to remove what is magnetized with the help of a magnet. The magnet must first be placed in a bag or a plastic container, and then it is enough to remove the magnet and the metal will sprinkle with outside protection. Otherwise, it is very tedious to remove magnetic grains from the magnet.
After some time, traces of gold are already visible on the scoop.

This morning we continued our conversation about gold mining in the Moscow region. We discussed the likely locations of alluvial deposits. One of the districts as an example.

The map is heavy, so we discussed a small area. I have maps of the Moscow region. The scale, as you can see, is 1:200,000. I'll help you figure it out. There are also cuts and explanatory notes. Who is interested, write your area and mail, as well as your preferred places for walking.
After some time, the interlocutor writes that he will take a walk to the quarry and take a sample, in order to show, using the example of a specific area, where and how to take samples and what can come of it.
Here is a photo report of his trip. Road to career.

The quarry for the extraction of ASG.

Well, fans of traveling are no strangers to garbage. Once, one and a half kilometers from the places where I saw the last traces of a person, I found the remains of a washing machine. Broken washing machine with stainless steel drum. There were finds of unfinished toilet bowls. I'm not talking about cans, bottles and packages, this rubbish is everywhere.

This is the side of the quarry where samples should be taken.

When approaching the outcrop, we see the layers. This is a former river carrying sand and gavium with grains of metal.

Perhaps someone thought that samples were taken with the performance of some kind of ritual or in the presence of a brass band. You are wrong. Everything is trivial to disgrace. Bucket for garbage and scrap. No romance.

It remains to wait for the results of washing. I'll let you know as soon as the results are known.
The reader kindly provided material for further washing of the sample. And once again I remind you that during the sample it is necessary to take the soil as there is to understand how many tons you need to shovel for a decent exhaust. This is followed by the separation of a sample weighing 12.5 kg into fractions, as a result of which we obtain 9.5 kg of gravel and 2.5 kg of sand.

There is also metal in gravel, but it must be passed through a mill, but at this stage there is no point in doing this, although there may be a sufficient amount of it. Grains of gold, having a density higher than sand, lie under the sand at the bottom of the basin.

And on the surface, hydromica flakes glisten, which sometimes mislead people.

Washing the sand, we get a concentrate, which is dominated by heavy metals. Here is the result of washing a bucket of gravel - 50 gr. concentrate. Somewhere in this schlich there may be grains of gold.

Finishing concentrate is the most crucial moment. Once you start finishing, don't stop. Under no circumstances should the slurry be allowed to dry out. When dry, gold flakes can become buoyant and float away with water, so do not allow the concentrate and the finishing surface to dry out during finishing. The finishing surface can be made from an ordinary scoop for garbage. The surface must be passed with sandpaper to remove the gloss. The surface must not have greasy spots and traces of oil, wet well with water. This is how you can start fine-tuning at home.

For gold mining Russian Federation ranks 4th in the world. Everyone at least once wore jewelry made of this precious metal or followed its bank rate. Let's figure out where they mine in Russia, who is engaged in this work in our country and how exactly the development of gold veins takes place.

Where is gold mined in Russia

Deposits of the yellow precious metal are located in the Urals, Altai and the Far East. Large enterprises are in charge of mining. Consider the main Russian mines.

• The Solovyovskoye deposit is the oldest in the Amur region and throughout the country. More than 150 years ago, the first handfuls of the precious metal were obtained here. Alluvial gold is located at a relatively shallow depth of 10 to 70 m. There are two methods of developing this mine: dredging and hydromechanized.

• The mine Udereisky is located in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Gold is mined here in the same way as in the previous quarry. Forecasts promise metal volumes of 800 kg annually until 2025.

• The Nevyanovsk deposit was found in the Ural Mountains quite by accident in 1816. Walking along the local river, a little girl - the daughter of one of the residents - discovered a piece of a gold nugget. Hydraulic monitors are used to extract the resource.

• Gradsky mine is a gold deposit in the Chelyabinsk region. The precious metal lies too deep, so it is mined only by a closed method. But diamonds are also found here.

• Dambuki is a mine located in the Amur Region. For more than 100 years, gold has been mined here using the drag method.

• Konder is a precious metal deposit in the Khabarovsk Territory. A nugget weighing about 1 kg was once found here. Every day, 150 kg of gold is mined here.

• The Altai deposit has existed for more than 50 years. The ore contains 9 g of gold for every ton of raw material. In the next 30 years, you can not worry about the content of the resource in this place.

How gold is mined in Russia

Modern technology has greatly simplified gold mining. Previously, for this it was necessary to wash the sand manually with a sieve, but now most of the work for a person is performed by specially created mechanisms.

• Dredges are units installed on a moving platform. It is also the name of a vessel that is equipped with this mechanism for the development of gold deposits in riverbeds. The device processes surface sand around the clock in search of the precious metal.
• Washing plants complete the work of the dredge, separating gold from excess impurities. The hydromechanized method in combination with the drag method is used in many mines.
• Hydro monitors are another device for the development of gold deposits. A dense jet of water destroys rock, allowing you to get to the deposits of the precious metal.

Private mining is prohibited in Russia, and lawbreakers who succumb to the gold rush face a considerable prison sentence. Despite this, in those places where deposits are discovered. Even for found hidden gold dust, you can get punished when trying to store or sell.

Only specialized enterprises legally mine the precious metal in Russia. The received resource is carefully registered and surrendered to the state. Gold is processed into bars or coins. Only then does it enter the market.

• In 2015, 234.24 tons of ingots were produced in Russia from the metal obtained in this way.
• Associated gold came out 16.97 tons. This is a resource obtained not at specialized mines, but in places where other minerals are mined.
• Secondary gold produced - 38.26 tons. It was created from metal waste or scrap.

Russia is a rich gold-bearing country. Huge reserves of the resource will last for several decades. There is the most placer gold on the territory of the Federation - in its development, the state ranks first in the world.

• About 20% of all production is accounted for by PJSC Polyus Gold, founded in 2006. The forces of this organization extract precious metal in the Irkutsk, Magadan, Amur regions and in the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
• PJSC "Zoloto Kamchatki" is a leader in the development of the resource in the territory of the Kamchatka Territory. It was created as a result of the transformation of Koryakgeoldobycha. To date, the company has big plans for the extraction and processing of precious metals.
• PJSC "Susumanzoloto" was formed on the basis of an enterprise for the development of a gold mine that existed in the Magadan region since 1938. It happened in 1994, and since then there have been many subsidiaries involved in various areas of processing and extraction of the resource.

In a post about the An-24 from a height of 4000 m, I am on approach to Severo-Yeniseisk: one is almost perfectly round and deep, the second is elliptical and shallower in depth. Now it is worth examining them up close. And even briefly join their daily life: go down to the very bottom of the quarry, feel the scale and beat of its working rhythm. It is worth looking at from above and at the same time assessing the complexity of managing such a colossus. How is this done and by what means?
Let's delve deeper into this harsh mining life, strange for the townspeople :)

To begin with, about who digs these careers in general and what kind of entity it is.
So, let's fast forward five hundred kilometers north of Krasnoyarsk - a little east of the Yenisei, between the Angara and Podkamennaya Tunguska.

In 1975, a large gold deposit was discovered here, which was named after the future Olympic Games in Moscow. After another 5 years, exactly in the year of the Olympics-80, an artel of prospectors was created to develop the Krasnoyarsk gold mines. But while prospectors worked a little aside. Detailed exploration of the deposit was carried out in 1983-93, after which it became possible to protect and register reserves and resources with the GKZ (State Commission for Mineral Reserves) and obtain a license to develop the deposit. Finally, after another 3 years, real gold mining began on the basis of Olimpiada - in 1996, and then a mining cluster began to gradually take shape, gradually expanding. The first gold recovery plant (ZIF) appeared at the same time, then the second, the third and in 2010 the fourth gold recovery plant. The cycle of extraction of the precious metal gradually became more complicated, the scale of production grew. Prospectors at the turn of the 1990s and the 2000s turned into a powerful mining group, Polyus, which has now become the largest gold mining company in Russia and the second largest taxpayer in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, after Norilsk Nickel. In terms of gold production, Polyus ranks 8th in the world.

Now, on the basis of the Olimpiada and the nearby Blagodatnoye deposit, a GOK (mining and processing plant) operates, which mines ore in an open way and extracts gold at four factories: ZIF-1, 2, 3, 4. The total production of gold (pure) is more than 45 tons in year. The Eruda settlement is a rotational settlement: approximately 5,500 people live here, changing periodically.

2. And we are going from Severo-Yeniseisk to the southeast, to the area of ​​the deposit. This is about 80 km in the taiga. If you can come here from the airport by PAZik (on the left), then the main transport inside the GOK territory is NEFAZ all-weather all-terrain shifts based on KamAZ trucks (on the right).

3. We spent the night for two nights in a rotational camp - in one of the high-rise buildings of the GOK, turned into a hotel. The first stage is getting work clothes, here they take this very seriously. By the way, it was the first thing that struck me - its quality. The boots turned out to be really cool - walking around a quarry with large stones or gravel is convenient and comfortable, the tread holds firmly even on scree. But that's not all: on the inner territory of the "Pole" (and this is several square kilometers) everyone's shoes are the same(!!!). Exactly the same as in the photo. A man or a woman, the chief technologist or the cleaner of the ZIF - it doesn't matter. Only the color of the piping differs: the male version with a white piping according to the firmware, and the female one with lilac. True, in the quarry itself, I also saw a second modification of shoes, with a high top - among excavators, for example. The work suit is also of high quality and typical. I had to leave my whole garment in which I came here in the room; however, it turned out to be good. I’ll add on my own that in two days I got so attached to the uniform that it was a pity to hand it over to the plant’s wardrobe lady - especially these boots.

4. The next stage is a safety briefing in the management of the Mining and Processing Plant. The radius of operation of equipment, what to fear, what objects are dangerous, what not to touch, the behavior of slopes and dumps, and so on. They even showed a whole movie about it. Then a painting in a magazine.

5. An interesting detail at the entrance. On both sides of the entrance there are such baths with water where you can wash your shoes. The brush is normally placed in this vertical cylinder. We need these baths because many people come here from quarries, from mills or other areas where there is dust and dirt. In the photo, by the way, the same typical boots as in No. 3. I went everywhere in them.

6. The main passenger transport of the GOK is the NEFAZ crew. There are a lot of them here - both as deliveries and as duty cars.

7. At the entrances to the production zones, there are posts everywhere and quite strict inspections and checks - both cars and passengers. The mouse just won't move. And this is understandable: in the GOK cycle - production with chemical components, blasting and other risk areas. And of course gold :)

8. We pass one of the ZIFs (gold recovery factories) - there, gold is extracted from ore with very complex procedures. However, we are not talking about them now, we are going to the quarry.

9. And now, finally, we are in place. Quarry "Vostochny" - the same round "hole" in the ground that was clearly visible from the plane.

9a. Aerial view of the quarry and the complex of gold mining plants.

10. But even here everything is not so simple. Before looking from above and going down, there is also a safety briefing here. Not general, as in the management of the GOK, but specific. What equipment works, what safety zones does it have, how to behave in case of an emergency, if anything. Then you sign. All this happens in the control room of the quarry - the red building behind the observation room.

11. We are inside the control room. From the window - a visual view down, although everything is duplicated by cameras.

12. Quarry dispatcher workplace. Everything is computerized, on monitors in real time - the work of all equipment. Icons of dump trucks move across the screens, each machine is equipped with geo-positioning. There is radio communication with excavators, mining foremen, explosives experts, and drillers. After watching the work of the dispatcher for 10 minutes, I found some parallel with air traffic controllers. The load here is really rather big: all the time there are different commands, instructions, notifications.

13. In order not to fantasize with the parameters of the quarry, I shot a poster in the control room. Look, everything is painted on the right. The depth of the quarry as of now is about 480 m. But it will be much deeper, it is still under development. The lower figures are the most eloquent: 117 million tons of ore mass have been removed from the quarry, and in total this quarry has produced 541 tons of pure gold today. About 70 dump trucks are involved in the cycle. And one more thing: the quarry is open around the clock. There are no breaks - winter-summer, blizzard-rain-snow, it doesn't matter. There are intervals for blasting, but this is also part of the production cycle.

Wait, what about traditional gold dredges? Are they worse than mining gold?
- Of course, worse. With their technology, the recoverability of gold is lower.
- And strongly?
- Almost twice as low.
Why then do they still exist?
- So there is alluvial gold, not ore. This is a completely different technology, fundamentally. And then, a normal quarry and its production cycle can only be done by a powerful production unit. Who is weaker economically - washes with dredges.

14. Another poster, from the same place. It's about process automation. High-precision positioning of equipment in its current form was introduced here relatively recently - 3-4 years, judging by the diagram. The next step is remote control. An interesting detail: there is no driver on mining dump trucks from 80 tons and above. Eat operator. All this equipment is registered not in the traffic police, but in Gostekhnadzor, but everyone has license plates. However, there is no right to enter public roads: cars are too heavy.

15. Finally, both briefings are completed and you can watch the mining world around us. View from the edge of the control room to a huge quarry almost half a kilometer deep. Of the gold quarries, it is the second in the world, after the Chilean one. Of the usual in Russia - in the top five. But the gold quarry, as you can see, is much cleaner than the coal one: there are no numerous "smoke" typical for coal seams. Visibility is excellent.

16. Another interesting point: the road down goes by no means in numerous spirals along each slope, but cuts through them with a more steeply descending tape. Here it is clearly visible. To go down from the control room to the very bottom, the dump truck needs to drive 8.5 km. There are already 17 round trips, plus time to load the breed. 6-7 walkers per shift.

17. View in full dress.

18. Immediately, nearby, rock samples in a quarry are laid out. From the list, let's look at the large ticked ones - No. 12 and No. 15.

19. O-12. Quartz-micaceous metosomatite. White is quartz.

20. O-15. Brown color- sulfide mineralization. Then, gold is "taken out" from such a shell by complex manipulations at the gold processing plant.

21. Mining ladies Vera and Irina. So there are not only men here :)

22. Now the next task is to get to the very bottom of the deepest well of the quarry. Here in this place, marked with a red frame.

23. We will go down half a kilometer on the trouble-free NEFAZ duty room.

24. The slopes of the quarry are stepped and rather steep. One tier about 25 meters high. That is, if you fall down even one step, there is little chance. The slope itself is cut so neatly by a special machine - do you see such grooves there? First, thin pits are drilled at regular intervals and then they are blown up with a precisely calculated mass of explosives. The excess is removed. As a result, it turns out so neat.

25. We have reached the bottom, we are approaching. View from the penultimate lower tier.

26. Here, the excavation and loading of ore onto mining dump trucks is in progress. They go upstairs and deliver the ore to the mills.

Video of this process:

27. Medium (136-ton) and small (90-ton) dump trucks are involved in the removal of ore. Loading is carried out by a 10-cube excavator. Dump trucks are imported (mainly Terex and Caterpillar).

The alignment is something like this: good ore is considered if the gold recovery is 3.5 - 3.8 g per 1 ton. This means that the 136-ton Caterpillar carries about 500 grams of gold to the top (to the maximum) with each goer. But this is ideal: in reality, the content may be lower - from 1.4 g per ton. The breed is different.

Hmm... Why not BelAZ trucks?
- Too unreliable and too much hemorrhoids with them.
- Wow...
- Yes. Their entire resource is less - both in the engine and in the tires, and the reliability is lower.
- Are these much more expensive?
- Approximately 2.5 times from BelAZ. But if you count in full life cycle- with them it turns out even a little cheaper.

28. Drilling rigs are at a distance. They drill pits for laying explosives and then undermine it: either a new lower tier of a quarry is obtained, or an extension of the walls of an existing tier, for the trouble-free operation of an excavator to excavate rock. In some places there are already red flags: explosives are being laid or have been planted there, explosives technicians are working. In general, one must be extremely careful: there are a lot of dangerous places inside the quarry. The work is not easy: it was not in vain that they strained us twice with briefings upstairs. All this is not out of harm, but out of necessity.

29. In some places, pipes for pumping liquid are also visible, descending in steps down the slopes.

30. From here, a view opens up to the very bottom. And we were a tier above where the excavator stands.

31. We leave from the bottom up. There are also warning signs here: another dangerous device.

32. We are going to the highest point of the quarry - a drop of about 740 meters, if you count from below.

33. From here too good view to the quarry. Exactly opposite is a pale red dot: this is the control room, where we were instructed in safety (photos 11-17).

34. The next day we were at another quarry of the Mining and Processing Plant - "Blagodatny".

35. More active stripping work is underway here now, so there are more dump trucks - not only medium ones for 136 tons, but also large ones for 220 tons.

36. Profits.

37. Here we are also waiting for our safety briefing. On the picture - workplace career manager completely (in the previous show on frame No. 12, I did not remove the upper screens with online charts).

38. Large - middle monitor of the bottom row with precise positioning of equipment in the quarry. Each dump truck has its own icon, which is constantly moving, so that the career dispatcher sees the whole picture in dynamics.

39. And here is the upper left screen with the current performance of the shift on duty.

40. View of the Blagodatny quarry from the control room. It is not as deep as its older brother "Vostochny" - about 250 meters (so far). It will certainly get deeper with time.

41. And now we are going to one of the loading points, where the largest dump trucks work.

42. An 18-cubic-meter excavator of the Izhora plant is already working here, almost 2 times more than what we saw at Vostochny. The dump trucks here are big - 220-ton Japanese "Komatsu", the most favorite among operators. These trucks are deployed in stripping operations, where large volumes of waste rock must be removed before they reach the gold ore beds.

43. "Komatsu" in comparison with the NEFAZ of the mining foreman on duty. True, the shift is a little further, but still the contrast of values ​​\u200b\u200bis clearly visible :)

44. A loaded Japanese went to export the breed.

The continuation of the story will be devoted to mining dump trucks and equipment. Let's look at them closer and in more detail.
Don't switch! :)