Jill's Journal: Happy Labor Day! Today we journeyed to a tiny town called Sutter Creek in the “heart of the Mother Lode,” or the middle of gold country. Our destination was Sutter Gold Mine, a modern 1980s-era mine. The mine has been closed as a working mine and is now exclusively open to the public, but the price of gold is extra-high right now ($1900 an ounce) and it is believed more gold is in there. Sutter Gold Mine has reapplied for their permits to resume mining. They will find out this Friday if they are approved; if so, there will be no more tours so we’re glad we were able to catch this one.
This is the entrance to the mine. Doesn’t look too bad, right?
However, we quickly found ourselves 600 feet into the earth.
Our guide showed us the progression of mining techniques throughout the years, starting with a starbit and sledgehammer all the way to drills to today’s modern explosives. We learned about the use of canaries and rats and young kids (powder monkeys). And we learned only 88,000 tons of gold has ever been found on/in the earth. That sounds like a lot except if it was all compressed into a cube, it would only equal 1/10th the mass of the Washington Monument.
The girls with their hard hats underground were awfully cute.
Here’s a few spots of gold that haven’t yet been mined. It was neat to see it just hanging out there in the wall.
Miners tried every bit of technology they had and couldn’t get through this particular “wall,” which looks and feels different than the other rock surroundings. It turns out this is an earthquake plate, an actual fault line. Our guide reassured everyone on the tour that earthquakes only affect the first 200 feet into the earth. We were deep enough that we should be safe in the event of a major earthquake on that fault. You know what? I don’t think any one in our tour group wanted to test that theory for themselves.
Back on the surface, we practiced with sluiceboxes for a bit…
…before trying our hands at panning for gold. The girls really, really enjoyed this.
These are Madelyn’s little hands with a tiny flake of gold she found. We found multiple flakes, unfortunately no where near even a fraction of an ounce! Gold mining (and panning) must have been a hard way to make a living.
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Update: Sutter Gold Mine was approved to re-establish mining operations. From a Sept. 13 article on FoxNews:
Sutter Gold Mine says it will be fully operational within 6 months and should pour its first gold bar within a year. Conservative estimates have the company believing it will pull at least 1,800 ounces of gold out of the ground each month, and that it is more than cost effective to reopen this mine, which has in parts been operational since before California was accepted into the Union.
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