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Thread: Is silver hard to mine?

  1. #1

    Is silver hard to mine?

    I am familiar with gold mining, since I lived in Montana when I was younger and we had friends who worked in the gold mines there. But I am not familiar with silver mining. Is it more difficult than gold mining? Has anybody on this forum done any silver mining?
    "..and on Earth anguish of nations, not knowing the way out...while men become faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited Earth." -- Jesus of Nazareth



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  3. #2
    IIRC, the majority of it is mined as a byproduct from other mines.

  4. #3
    From what little I've read on the subject, silver is a byproduct of mining for other metals.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_mining

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by specsaregood View Post
    IIRC, the majority of it is mined as a byproduct from other mines.
    So, is the ore crushed and put in a solution to extract the silver, like they do with gold? Does it separate from the ore very easily? By-products of gold mining are called "sulfides". Sulfides are beautiful "tailings" that contain gold, silver, zinc, nickel and other metals. The old timers didn't have a way to extract the gold out of the sulfides, and up in Cooke City, Montana there are tons of sulfides laying around the place. But now, with newer technology they can extract the gold out of the sulfides. I wonder if this is the case with silver. Extracting can be expensive, such as with platinum.
    "..and on Earth anguish of nations, not knowing the way out...while men become faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited Earth." -- Jesus of Nazareth

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Bern View Post
    From what little I've read on the subject, silver is a byproduct of mining for other metals.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_mining
    Ok. The wiki you provided leads to another page that describes the "Parkes process", which doesn't seem to be that difficult a process in separating silver from lead and zinc.
    "..and on Earth anguish of nations, not knowing the way out...while men become faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited Earth." -- Jesus of Nazareth

  7. #6
    Arklatex
    Member

    Good morning! Each mine and ore is different and has it's own extraction processes.

    They are right their are few primary silver mines.

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Arklatex View Post
    Good morning! Each mine and ore is different and has it's own extraction processes.

    They are right their are few primary silver mines.
    Good morning to you, Arklatex! I can see that now. After what I just read on wiki, I will be very cautious of any potatoes that have a silvery liquid in them! : )
    "..and on Earth anguish of nations, not knowing the way out...while men become faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited Earth." -- Jesus of Nazareth

  9. #8
    Arklatex
    Member

    Interesting to note of all the metals, only Cu Ag and Au are ever found in pure elemental form in nature. That is not bonded with another element, usually a non metal like sulfur or phosphorus. Cool huh? Even then it is rare.



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  11. #9
    From what I have heard, 70% of silver production is a byproduct of copper and other metals mining.



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