Kanowna-Belle-Goldmine
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The Kanowna -Belle Gold Mine (also called Kanowna Belle) is located in the region of Goldfields - Esperance, near the ghost town Kanowna, 19 kilometers northeast of Kalgoorlie and 625 kilometers from Perth in Western Australia, Australia.
It is operated gold mine in 2012 by Barrick Gold with 300 employees.
History
In the area where gold was found in 1893, was a settlement that was in 1894 appointed to the city Kanowna. As the surface -mounted gold was mined in the alluvial deposits, the search was continued underground. Since the gold veins are not superficial, the findings fell and the city was depopulated, which counted 1899 12.500 inhabitants. In the time of the Great Depression, the railway station of the city was closed, and in 1953 abandoned the place. As the price of gold rose in the 1970s, was again carried out a search for gold and by drilling found that there is a large gold deposit. Gold mining was recorded in mining in 1984 again.
Geology
The Archean gold deposit is located in the Norsman - Wiluna greenstone belt and consists of a series of accumulated ore lenses that extend over a length of 600 meters and to a depth of over 1000 meters. The orebody occurs not out of the surface. Enriched iron oxide is about 35-45 feet below the earth's surface, which was subject to a sulfide mineralization. Some non- weathered superficial mineralization at the surface are not fractured, but in the deeper layers of the ore concentrations were heated before the gold was leached.
Mine
The gold deposit was explored in 1989 by Delta Gold NL and Geopeko gold. Construction of the plant began in 1992 and mining in 1993.
The mine was located until 1999 the sole property of Delta Gold Ltd, the merged, the Auriongold Ltd. founded with Gold Fields Ltd. jointly in February 2002. Auriongold was acquired by Placer Dome in 2003, the 60 % stake in the mine held at the time .. Placer Dome was acquired by Barrick Gold in March 2006 for U.S. $ 10.4 billion.
Since 2008, gold is mined in three opencast mines in the Kanowna -Belle, Raleigh and Bullant Goldmine.
The Kanowna -Belle Gold Mine has on its premises two viewing platforms and a building in which the mine is explained.
Technology and Environment
The ground ore is mined and drizzled with cyanide and seeped through the heaps solution produces a concentrate, a brown sludge, which then thickens and the chlorides are washed out. In two stages, it is heated to oxidise pyrite and to remove the arsenic. After this process, it is treated with lime and a cyanide solution. Then gold is absorbed in a series of seven tanks using activated carbon. The gold is deposited in an electrolysis process to steel wool and then poured into a smelter into bars.
In the process of cyanidation arise poisons, the gold is chemically bound in highly toxic leachates. After filtration and precipitation occurs brown sludge, it is absorbed from the after washing and drying by reducing raw gold. This results hydrocyanic acid and cyanides, which may escape into the environment in spite of recycling of the liquor. The incurred in this process are toxic substances. Although these are easily decomposed and degraded in nature, yet the resulting large slag heaps and cyanide dust may be distributed in an uncontrolled manner by wind and water, uncontrolled discharge of toxic substances into the environment and cause serious ecological damage.
The gold-bearing ore in this mine is mined underground with an automated mining technology of the company. Previously, the mine was operated in open pit shovel excavators and dump trucks to 1998 ..
Production
Production figures: