One of the big environmental questions lately that has been arising is ‘what metals are there to be used for?’ This is because of the growing concerns of investors on the health risks and sustainability of precious metals like gold, silver and platinum. With the constant rise in the prices of gold and silver, and the decreasing market values of other metals, many people have begun to ask ‘can we mine these metals and make money from them?’ or get the materials for use in Tapping Machines like those from https://www.cotswold-machinery-sales.co.uk/roscamat/.
The first answer to this question is a resounding ‘no’. This is because most metals found in nature form very dense mineral phases that are very difficult to extract using traditional mining techniques. This means that there is always going to be a limited amount of metals that can be extracted from the earth’s crust and this will always include the rarest and most expensive ones. One exception to this would be when tailings are found within the earth’s crust where the minerals within these tailings can be extracted easily. Usually, these tailings would contain very high concentrations of the metals contained within them.
There are a few different methods that are used in order to extract precious metals from within the earth’s crust however one method is by way of a process called ‘salt fatigue’ where heavy minerals like gold and silver is placed inside a tumbler which spins at very high speeds and then the tumbler is crashed into the ground.
