Gold Assays for Beginners: A Simple Introduction
Are you new to gold prospecting? Understanding gold assays is essential to evaluating your gold-bearing material.
Assaying tells you how much pure gold is in a rock or soil sample. It’s vital in mining and prospecting.
To start, you collect a representative sample. Most assays use 31.1 grams, equal to one troy ounce.
After collecting the sample, you must crush it into a fine powder. This step exposes all gold particles.
Why is this important? Fine particles ensure that gold separates correctly during the smelting process.
Next, the powdered sample is mixed with a substance called flux. Flux helps separate gold from impurities.
The flux usually contains borax, silica, and soda ash. Each component plays a key role in purification.
Then, place the mixture into a crucible. The crucible must withstand extremely high furnace temperatures.
Heat the crucible above 1,000°C. This melts the mixture and allows gold to separate from non-metal materials.
During melting, the flux binds to impurities. As a result, pure gold settles at the bottom as a bead.
Measuring and Calculating Gold Content
After cooling, pour off the leftover material. The remaining gold bead is called a prill.
Carefully weigh the prill to determine the gold content. Let’s say it weighs 0.155 grams.
To calculate the gold percentage, divide the bead weight by the original sample weight.
0.155 divided by 31.1 equals 0.00498. Multiply by 100 to convert this to a percentage: 0.498% gold.
Even small percentages matter. Over time, they can add up to profitable returns from your gold prospecting efforts.
Estimating Gold Value from Your Sample
You can now estimate the value of your gold. First, check the current gold price. Assume $2,673 per ounce.
Next, multiply the gold percentage by the gold price: 0.00498 × $2,673 = $13.31.
This number tells you the value of gold in that one assay sample. It’s a quick way to gauge profitability.
As you can see, gold assays provide critical financial insights. Therefore, learning this skill is worth the effort.
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