Gold Deposits: From Primary to Placers and Tailings After Mining

Dear Colleagues,

Gold is one of the rarest elements in the Earth’s crust. Ore-forming processes lead to gold concentrations of thousands to millions greater than the average metal abundances in common crustal rocks. Gold has been mined from a variety of deposit types that range in age from Archaean to recent. No uniform classification exists for gold deposits, which reflects some uncertainties in our understanding of their genesis. Gold is concentrated in rocks by hydrothermal fluids derived from magmatic or metamorphic processes to form primary “lodes” or anomalously abundant disseminations in the Earth’s crust. Weathering and erosion of primary deposits form secondary oxide and alluvial gold. The gold may be present as native gold or other minerals of gold hosted in quartz, sulfides, carbonates, etc., or as invisible gold within the structure of pyrite and arsenopyrite.

Currently, large amounts of gold-bearing substances in the world are contained in tailings after mining. We are organizing a global collaborative Special Issue to report recent advances in geology, geochronology, geochemistry, mineralogy, and prospecting prediction of gold deposits. Papers discussing modern analytical methods and experimental and thermodynamic modeling are also welcome. New knowledge on the behavior of gold in endogenic and supergene environments will contribute to solving the problem of full extraction from ores and tailings after mining. This Special Issue will help us to better understand and predict how, where, and when the gold deposits form.

Dr. Galina Palyanova
Dr. David Banks
Prof. Dr. Daniel J. Kontak
Guest Editors

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