Many people don’t realize just how much of the world’s gold supply comes from gold mines in the United States. As recently as 2007 the US was the fourth largest gold producing nation in the world, coming in behind South Africa, Australia, and China. It is difficult to say which of America’s gold mines is the largest, because size can refer to both the amount of land that is currently being taken up by the mine as well as the amount of gold that is produced, and both of those numbers at any mine are constantly changing.

Until it closed in 2002, Homestake Gold Mine was the oldest, largest, and deepest gold mine in the entire Western Hemisphere. The mine began during the Gold Rush of 1876 in what was then Dakota Territory. Brothers Moses and Fred Manuel and their business partner Hank Harney made claim on the land that would later become the Homestake Gold Mine on April 9^th, 1876. From there, the area grew very quickly and by 1910 Lead was the second largest community in all of South Dakota. The mine was closed for a brief period during World War II and upon its reopening saw much modernization with its techniques and procedures with the arrival of the information age. In September of 2000 it was announced that the mine would close after more than 125 years of operation.

Goldstrike Mine is often considered the largest gold mine in North America, but this is questionable because of the fact that it actually made up of three separate and distinct mines: Betze-Post, which is an open-pit mine, as well as two underground mines known as Meikle and Rodeo. The entire complex is located on the Carlin Trend, the most prolific gold mining district in the Western Hemisphere, located near Elko, Nevada. Barrick Gold, the largest pure gold mining company in the world, began mining Goldstrike in 1986 and has since turned it into one of the top five gold-producing mines in the world.

In Southwestern Alaska, near Anchorage, the Donlin Creek gold deposit is considered one of the largest undeveloped gold deposits in the world. Research has shown that it could contain as much gold as the Homestake mine. Although there is not currently a mine in this location, there is much continued exploration and it is likely that a mine will be built in the next few years. It is estimated that capitalization from the development of this mine could be as much as $7 billion, not to mention the number of jobs that would be created.

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Gold has many unique properties that make it useful in a variety of different ways. Many people do not know that besides being beautiful, gold conducts electricity, is great for your skin, will never tarnish, and is very pliable so that it can be worked into a variety of shapes and used to make any number of objects. Gold is most commonly used as jewelry, but is also often used in computer processors and other electronic goods, as well as in the beauty, architectural, medical, and dental industries. Because of its many uses and high value, gold mines are constantly being sought out and worked to their full potential.

There are several ways to mine gold, the first of them being panning. Panning for gold was the most frequently used way to find gold during the late nineteenth century Gold Rush, and it is actually still a common practice across the United States, although it is really more of a recreational activity as it is a fairly inefficient way to find gold. Gold panners use a sieve or strainer to sift through muddy water to find gold nuggets.

Another way to mine gold is through what is known as sluicing. This is similar to panning for gold in that gravel, sand, and water are passed through a sluicing box, effectively separating out the gold. What makes this different and more efficient than panning for gold is that the boxes are typically much larger than a small pan, and because they are so large people can also dig up gold bearing materials from river beds and place them in a large heap inside the sluicing box. This allows for slightly deeper gold prospecting. As with panning, this method of gold mining is typically used by small operations and individuals.

Compared to the previous two forms of gold mining, underground gold mining (also known as hard rock mining) is big business. When gold is stuck deep in the ground beneath layers and layers of hard rock, underground pits and tunnels are dug to extract it. Another form of hard rock mining is open-pit mining, in which a large trench is dug and the gold is extracted from above ground. In both cases, rocks that contain gold ore are extracted from the earth and then taken to a processing plant where chemicals are used to completely separate and clean the gold.

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