DEPARTMENT OF MINING ENGINEERING

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, RAIPUR

Placers Ores deposit

NAME : KISHAN KUMAR GAUTAM

COURSE : BTech

BRANCH: MINING

SEMESTER: 4th

ROLL NO: 19121029

SUB: Geology-2

SUB CODE: MI10413AG

INSTRUCTED BY:Dr.D.C.Jharia

DATE OF SUBMISSION:10 March, 2021

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 About the author
This paper is written by Kishan Kumar Gautam, a student of
National Institute of Technology,Raipur pursuing B. Tech and
in 2nd year , March,2021.
Address: rajnagar, new prem nagar, district:Anuppur, post:
bangawan, madhya pradesh, Email:
gautamkishan9425@gmail.com

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 ABSTRACT

A placer deposit, also known as a placer, is an aggregation of

valuable minerals produced during sedimentary processes by
gravity separation from a particular source rock. The word
"placer" comes from the Spanish word "alluvial sand.
Placer mining is a great source of gold, and it was the main
extraction method during the initial years of many gold mines,
along with the Klondike Gold Rush. Alluvium, eluvium, beach
placers, eolian placers, and paleoplacers are different types of
placer deposits.Placer materials should be heavy as well as
tolerant to weathering. Mineral particles must be significantly
denser than quartz to collect in placers.

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 Table of content
● Introduction
● Types of placer deposit
● Significance of placer deposit
● Conclusion
● Acknowledgement
● Reference

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 INTRODUCTION
The organic content of heavy minerals due to effect of gravity on
particles moving is known as a placer deposit. When weathering
systems free dense, resilient minerals from their matrix, they are
cleaned downward slope in to the flows, that mostly easily winnow
the thinner matrix. As a consequence, dense materials start
concentrating down river, shoreline, and lag (residual) gravels,
creating a helpful mineral deposit.Gold, platinum and many more
precious gems are minerals that construct placer deposits and
must be of highly specific gravity, are highly inert to
decomposition, long lasting etc.

The figure shows the deposition of placer deposite

River flow deposit, eluvial deposit, seashore deposit, and eolian

deposit are all examples of this kind of deposit. Placer gold,
Tinstone, platinum, and gemstones have now been uncovered in

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river placers, and is by far the greatest significant. Stream placers
rely on swiftly water flow for their concentration, and because of
their convenience of mining and often great treasures, they seem
to be the origin of some of the world's greatest gold and diamond
"rushes." The flow rate become essential so because capacity to
shift solid particles varies roughly as that of the flow velocity;
therefore, at which velocity decreases, heavier minerals are
accumulated much more rapidly than lighter materials. Rich gold
deposits in Alaska and the Klondike, platinum placers in the Urals,
tin (cassiterite) mines in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, and
gem placers in Congo (Kinshasa) and Angola are all examples of
river placers.

Types of placer deposit

● Residual placers.
● Eluvial placers.
● Stream placers.
● Bench placers.
● Flood gold deposits.
● Desert placers.
● Tertiary gravels.
● Miscellaneous types.
● a) beach placers.
● b) glacial deposits.
● c) eolian placers.

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1.Residual deposit:

A residual placer is basically a gold (and perhaps other solid

mineral) accumulation at or around the point of discharge from the
host rocks. Enrichment occurs in this kind of placer as a result of
reduction of non-valuable substance instead of the accumulation
of values brought in from outside sources. Residual placers are
potentially rich, but they are difficult to be high, and as a class,
they have been overlooked.

ELUVIAL PLACERS:

Eluvial placers are a stage in the process of shifting from a

remains deposits to a river deposits. When any form merges with
any other, it's impossible to tell them apart. They're typically found
as not regular sheets of surface detritus and mud encircling a
hillside below a vein or other useful mineral reserve. Sometimes
worth noting that the parent veins may or may not be visible on
surface level. Surface creep pushes the gold and weathered
detritus down hill more slowly in eluvial placers than in residual

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placers, making the lights parts to be washed away by natural
causes.

Rivers deposit:

River deposits should be the most popular type in Western states

and, as a consequence, the most popular type found in mineral
identification. Individual placers vary too much that there are few
generalisations that about them, however for purposes of this
paper,we classify them in the following categories:

● Gulch placers.
● Creek placers.
● River deposits.
● Gravel-plain deposits.

a. Gulch deposits:

They are macro in size, have high gradients, typically found in

small drainages where a regular river flow may or may not exist.
In most cases,so called deposits are made up of a combination of
badly sorted gravel and detritus from nearby hillsides. Gravel
accumulations are frequently small and discontinuous due to the
steep gradient. Boulders are often encountered in such large
amounts that anything but the most basic hand mining operations
are impossible. On bedrock, the gold has high chances of of
having coarse size and highly accumulation.Since most gulch
deposits are easy to be mined , unworked residue of lower gulch
deposits were typically the first to be discovered by early miners.

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b. Creek placers:

Creek placers have also been rich source of gold in several

regions, however unlike gulch placers, many were cautiously
mined by early explorers and figured out where it was profitable.
Most of those lower-grade residues left by the initial hand miners
have since been extracted by machinery mining, mostly dragline
dredges during the early 1900s decline.

c. River deposits:

The much more significant gravel flats in or close to the bases of

today's rivers are recognized as river deposits, and they've
become our most major source of placer resources as a whole.
They resemble creek placers in nature, however the gold is finer,
the gravel is well-rounded, and large rocks are smaller or absent.
Regardless of the fact that the deposit as a whole is low-grade,
pay streaks and bedrock It's not strange to find quantities large
enough just to allow dredging or other large-scale mining
activities.

d. Gravel-plain deposits:

These really are hard to characterize because they can vary from
river or bench deposits to flood-plain or delta-type beds, so they
can be old or new geologically. Gravel deposits are developed
whenever a river canyon straightens and broadens, and when it

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hits a large, low-gradient valley. The contained placers are similar
to the ones in river deposits, however they are larger.

BENCH PLACERS :

Bench placers are generally the remain of concentrations that

developed earlier in the stream's formation and then were left
behind when the stream cut downstream. The vacated sections
are usually referred to as "bench" gravels, specifically those on
the hillsides. If more than one pairs of benches,the miners called
them as "high" & "low" benches, generally.

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FLOOD DEPOSITS

Under flood conditions, finely divided gold typically travels a long

way. This gold, dubbed "flood gold" by miners, is made up mainly
of very small particles that it takes 1k to 5k colours to equal one
penny. With a few exceptions, gold has proved to be economically
irrelevant. The mineral examiner must consider flood gold
deposits for what they are.

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Tangential forces act on water as it sweeps around a curve,
causing increase in speed along the curve's outer diameter and a
corresponding decrease along the curve's inner radius. Friction
retards the flow of the bottom layer of water, causing it to flow
sideways along surface into the inner side. As a result, sand and
fine gravel accumulate.

DESERT PLACERS

Sandy placers in the South and west exist under a lot of

situations, however they are unique enough out of regular river
placers must have their own classification. working with the typical
these kind of deposits, the resource investigator must learn to
avoid or at least apply with precaution a few of the stream
deposition regulations. These deposits exist in arid areas where
degradation and sediment transport is highly reliant on rapidly
river flow that flood down gullies and dry washes after summer

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cloudbursts.Various quantities of sand, gravel, or side-hill detritus
are brought in from the sides during the intervening periods by
lighter, sporadic rain wash, which is adequate to transfer material
into the washes but not further. Depending on the strength and
length of the storm as well as the depth of the fill, a torrential flow
will flow all or part of the accumulated detrital fill when the next
heavy rain arrives.

TERTIARY GRAVELS DEPOSIT :

Cold-bearing these sediments are everywhere in California's main

Sierra Nevada region, and also north - western California and
south - western Oregon to a smaller extent. In north - eastern
Oregon and main Idaho, a few have been found. Many kilometers
of these historic river channels have been extracted in California,
and several of the California mines produced item worth more
than 232 million dollars.Seven California mines have produced
gold valued more than 232 million dollars in total. The actual
production is unknown, but it is assumed to be very much
higher.Though few, if any, of the current These deposits has taken
out at the currently gold price, the possibility of doing so in the
future exists and should be taken seriously.

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Beach placers :

Where metallic is taken in ocean by many riveri connecting to

ocean, beach placers might form.exceptionally extremely active
beach deposits founded in Nome, Last Frontier round the flip of
the century, none have tried to be significantly valuable within the
Western Nations .these deposits are on the sea-coast square
measure found as unpredictably spreaded, somewhat
convexo-convex accumulation of dark sand minerals with variable
small quantity of gold grains and Tinrode material group. Black
sand are often expected to consist mostly of magnetic iron-ore
and mineral however vital quantity of mineral square measure
exist in American state beach sands. within the case of
auriferous beach placers, the individual black sand concentrations
square measure rarely over one hundred feet long or quite a
number of feet thick. Those found on the active beaches square
measure the results of storm and recurrent event action, and that

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they come back and go along with dynamic conditions of the
beach. a number of the foremost productive placers are found in
ancient, elevated beaches that square measure currently many
miles landlocked.

Eolians deposits:

In sandy regions the air flow could behave associate degree of

accumulation by processing sand and therefore the less heavy
particles faraway from low worth materialassociate degreed
departure an enriched surface veneer containing gold or different
serious minerals in an exceedingly somewhat targeted slate.
There are several cases wherever wind-caused surface
enrichments supported the activities of itinerant miners
mistreatment hand tools and easy dry washers.

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Although commercial-grade Eolian placers aren't possible to be
encountered by today’s mineral examiner, he ought to bear in
mind of their existence and will be aware of their dishonest look.
In different words, once taking near-surface samples from desert
placers, he ought to guard against unintentional seasoning that
might result from the inclusion of non-representative, wind-caused
surface enrichments.

Significance of placers deposits:

The presence of overabundant alluvion deposits of gold on the

Gold Coast coast and also the complete lack of its supply rocks
within the space could be a extraordinary truth.The metallic veins
square measure gift in Brazil and it's evident that the gold
deposits of Gold Coast in Africa square measure obtained from
the Brazil upland from the time once the 2 continents were beside
one another.The widespread distribution of Permo-Carboniferous
glacial deposits in South America, African countries, Madagascar,
Arabia, asia, Antarctica, and Australia and new Zeland was one
among the foremost items of proof for the idea of geological

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phenomenon.the glacial continuity show the existence the of
Godwana continent and hence help to establish Alfred Wagner
theory.

Conclusion

Placer deposit are main source of some heavy and precious

minerals in the world. Also it's ease of mining make it more
preferable mining. It have it's various types but the most important
is the stream deposit which is the main source of gold world wide.
Also it plays a significant role in providing evidence for the
continental drift theory.

Acknowledgment

I would like to show my greatest appreciation to Prof. D. C. Jharia

for his support and guidance which helped me through the path of
completing the paper. Also I would like to thank my mom and dad
for motivating me to complete this work. I will always be thankful
to them for whatever they have done.

Reference
● Placer deposit by Britannica click here to visit

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● Placer deposit by wikipedia click here to visit
● Placer deposit by research gate click here to visit
● Types of placer by 911 Metalergist click here to visit
● Finding gold in Colorado click here to visit
● Beach placer deposit science direct click here to visit
● Eolian deposit by Slideshare click here to visit
● Continental drift theory by byjus click here to visit

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